Let's decipher stylized kanji!

:eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes: Who exactly agreed?

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That’s already quite impressive :slight_smile:
I think you’ve gotten everything right so far, to be quite frank, I can’t fully remember where all of these came from either^^. Also note how it nicely chronicles my first trip to Japan last year :smiley:
If you look at the one for Mitaki-dera, you can actually see it more readably in the bottom left corner, partially covered up by the calligraphy.

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Also, the completely unreadable 宮島 one should be the shrine on top of the mountain there. I took the ropeway up and followed the paths up until the vantage point, and there’s a shrine on the way.

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Oh yes, I can just make out 弥山 in the bottom left, there. Not too sure what the name of the temple up there is - this page has a list of the halls, but doesn’t appear to name the temple as a whole (though it may be a subordinate temple of Daisho-in). Also found this post by a guy with the same goshuin written by a different person, and I still can’t make out what it says (it’s in the second collection of images, seventh image from the top).

I’ve been up there too, on a day that was absolutely stinking hot. Think I’m really gonna have to go back there sometime and actually get the goshuin…

(Also, while researching I discovered that Daiganji is apparently one of Japan’s three most famous Benzaiten temples… yet I really have no memory of visiting it. Checking my photos now, it seems like I took a photo of the main gate, then just moved on. Really gonna have to go back there. I mean, aside from anything else, we only spent one night there, I don’t think we got the time to really experience the town.)

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Is it too late to ask what a 御朱印 is supposed to be? The shogun’s scarlet seal doesn’t mean much to me.

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It’s technically i think the red stamps you see on my pictures there. Basically, in most temples/shrines in japan you can ask for a 御朱印(ごしゅいん) to be added to your 御朱印帳(ごしゅいんちょう)(for usually ~300 yen). I’m pretty sure there’s some deeper significance to it, but for me it’s mostly a way to get a record of places I’ve visited + pretty calligraphy.

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When I went to Japan I visited a lot of temples but the thought of talking to anyone there made me anxious so I basically just went there, took pictures, next destination.

Maybe I should do the goshuin next time I visit :thinking:

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Some reading material:

(The 300 yen is, strictly speaking, a donation to the temple rather than a payment. But yeah, most were 300 yen, though some were 500.)

If you’re holding out a shuincho to them, they’ll recognise that you want a goshuin without needing to speak. :stuck_out_tongue:

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I usually went with some variation on “すみません、御朱印(ごしゅいん)(もら)えますか?”

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Aye, indeed.

(Though, on my first attempt at getting one, I said 買えますか, and let me tell you, I’d have to say that’s the closest I’ve ever come to causing actual offence in Japan. :slightly_smiling_face:)

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Thinking about it, this is mostly an issue at smaller shrines. If you go to the main 厳島(いつくしま)神社(じんじゃ) there’s a designated line for people wanting them^^.

@jneapan I recommend getting them, it’s nice, and you get to practice some japanese. I even had a little conversation with some of the monks/priests at some of the more obscure shrines because they were so surprised that I asked for one :grin:

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My tip: look for the sign. Usually says 御朱印所, but may say 朱印所 or 納経所 or particularly at shrines, 授与所 or 社務所, but I’d honestly say that 御朱印所 is by far the most common I’ve seen.

I had a conversation with a woman at Ishiura Shrine in Kanazawa while we were waiting in line - we both had Matsunoo Taisha in Kyoto, but she was astonished that I also had Saiho-ji, which is nearby, partly because it’s comparatively hard to get into.

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I learned a lot today :eyes:

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Seeing this thread again reminded me that I still meant to post this. This was carved into a rock on Oshima in Matsushima in Miyagi prefecture. There are lots of old stone carvings and faded epitaphs that I had no hope of reading, some referring to famous people who frequented the island like Date Masamune (early 1600s) and Matsuo Basho (late 1600’s).

I found it really interesting to see different archaic styles. (I haven’t tried looking this one up, I assume it’s a name of some sort. If anyone works it out, do let me know). I wonder about when kanji began to be stylistically differentiated between the Chinese hanzi :thinking:

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Ah, Matsushima.

Anyway, the kanji here look kinda archaic, so I really don’t think we’d be able to figure it out. I mean I can recognise radicals here and there, but then the rest of is it all bone scripty - like the canopy on the left-hand one, but then what’s going on inside the canopy?

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Yeah pretty much. It’s like kanji reinterpreted in some sort of vaguely similar alien language. Everything looks just familiar enough but it never forms anything coherent. It gives me a similar feeling as reading Middle English.

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Picking up from where I left off, because I’m at work procrastinating:

Summary

For those keeping track, I’m on the sixth image down. (And yeah, I know I’m reading left to right even though they’re written in the book right to left)

  • Ooo. Loopy. I can see a 堂, I think, which might make this a subordinate hall of something else. Ah yes, the next one has the same stamp in the lower-left corner. A stamp which I’m having trouble reading. That’s the name of the temple written down the left-hand edge, but I can’t make heads or tails of it. Oh wait, the other ones with the same date are in Nara. A clue! Plotting your other goshuin on the map and extrapolating, I’m thinking… Kofuku-ji. Can’t tell what specific hall this comes from, though - Kofuku-ji has 北円堂 and 南円堂, but those don’t really look right.
  • Sanjusan Gendo in Kyoto, yes? Not quite sure what to make of the big words, though, aside from the obvious 大.
  • I want to say Himuro Shrine in Nara.
  • Also Kofuku-ji. Still can’t tell the specifics. Maybe one of them is the pagoda?
  • Well, it says “Kinryu Shrine”, bit I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of that. I like the dragons on the lower stamp.
  • Ah, Kasuga Taisha, Nara. I want to go there - my one visit to Nara was interrupted by it coincidentally being the day of the Basara Matsuri.
  • Rokuon-ji? AKA Kinkaku-ji? Not hugely confident here - I can see 金閣 written on the… uh… tapir (?) in the corner, and the first kanji in the big stamp kinda looks like 鹿, but… yeah. Not sure. I’ve been to Kinkaku-ji, though (again, before I started collecting).
  • Aha, Todai-ji. I was wondering when that was going to show. Again, I’ve been here (the one temple I actually managed to visit while in Nara) but that was before I started collecting.
  • This looks like Senso-ji - I’ve got this, but the big text down the centre is different on mine.

    Mine says 聖観音, the name of the enshrined aspect of Kannon. Yours is… uh… 大黒天? Is he related to Senso-ji? Though come to think of it, the other stamps are different too, only the one in the lower-left matches.
  • Ah, it’s useful when they come numbered - this one says it’s temple 41 in the 中部四十九薬師霊場. That makes it Kokubun-ji in Hida Takayama. And come to think of it, that’s what the kanji down the left say.
  • Oh, this is refreshingly easy to read. Meiji Shrine. Been there before I started collecting, again. Ah, you got this in April this year - just before it stopped being Heisei and started being Reiwa.

I feel like I should be doing more than just identifying these…

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I’ll see if i can check your answers when i have access to a PC, but here’s some pointers to what i think the ones you weren’t sure about are:

Summary

興福寺 南円堂
日本、〒630-8213 奈良県奈良市登大路町48
+81 742-22-7755
https://maps.app.goo.gl/?link=https://www.google.com/maps/place//data%3D!4m2!3m1!1s0x6001398862c20e53:0x5c4694128407e53f?utm_source%3Dmstt_1&apn=com.google.android.apps.maps&afl=https://www.google.com/maps/place//data%3D!4m2!3m1!1s0x6001398862c20e53:0x5c4694128407e53f?utm_source%3Dmstt_1&ibi=com.google.Maps&ius=comgooglemapsurl&isi=585027354&ifl=https://www.google.com/maps/place//data%3D!4m2!3m1!1s0x6001398862c20e53:0x5c4694128407e53f?utm_source%3Dmstt_1
金龍神社
日本、〒630-8212 奈良県奈良市春日野町160
+81 742-22-7788
https://maps.app.goo.gl/?link=https://www.google.com/maps/place//data%3D!4m2!3m1!1s0x600139c1a84605c1:0x97bbe0f24612df1b?utm_source%3Dmstt_1&apn=com.google.android.apps.maps&afl=https://www.google.com/maps/place//data%3D!4m2!3m1!1s0x600139c1a84605c1:0x97bbe0f24612df1b?utm_source%3Dmstt_1&ibi=com.google.Maps&ius=comgooglemapsurl&isi=585027354&ifl=https://www.google.com/maps/place//data%3D!4m2!3m1!1s0x600139c1a84605c1:0x97bbe0f24612df1b?utm_source%3Dmstt_1

Kinryuu shrine is a tiny one in the back of Nara. There’s a few small very specialised ones grouped there that actually had a shared building where i could pick which of the shrines i wanted the goshuin for.

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Ah, so it was 南円堂? Maybe the kanji in the calligraphy is in a more archaic style.

Edit: Yep, Wiktionary to the rescue - 円 = 圓. And now I can kind of see 南円堂 in the calligraphy.

Aye, I found it on Google Maps.

That’s handy, but what if you want them all? You’ll basically tie up one guy for half an hour…

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Sad to say I don’t actually remember :frowning:

Should be.

IIRC, they had 3 different designs you could pick from.

You pointing out that there’s a numbered group of temples like this kind of makes me want to go and collect them all now…

Getting the shuin here was kind of intimidating, because you had to actually enter into one of the buildings, opposite from where all the tourists were buying souvenirs, and it kind of had this feeling of "only people with serious business should be here.

I’m kind of sad that I didn’t make time to go to 温泉寺 when I was in Kinosaki, it’s the only stop on my trip last year where I didn’t get a shuin.

Sidenote: How are you so good at this? Do you already know a bunch about the temples/shrines in japan, or are you just able to identify just enough to use google to fill in the rest?

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