English Reading: Kiryu Inari Jinja
English Translation: Paulownia Life Inari Shrine
Size: Tiny
Deity: Inari
Fox Count: 2
First Visit: 14-Mar-2018
Location: Tokyo-Chiyoda
Address: 2 Chome-3-7 Fujimi, Chiyoda-ku, Tōkyō-to 102-0071
With the final exam of my Japanese course coming up, I've been pretty busy these last few weeks. Immediately after the exam is over, however, I embark on a stray on which I should find a number of new fox shrines.
This one is the first of them, and it features the biggest of the "standard" fox statues that I've ever seen. Those white fox statues with gold accents sitting on an orange dais are the most common ones in Japan by a wide margin, and you can actually purchase them in many larger Inari shrines to offer them to whichever Shrine you want. This is typically done if you have a particularly important prayer to make, or maybe to express gratitude for something good that happened.
Anyway, those standard fox statues always come in pairs (you literally can't just buy one) and in many different sizes. However, the typical sizes are small enough that you can either carry both in one hand, or one in each hand. These two here are clearly the XXL-variant, requiring both hands and a bit of effort to lift just one (but since they're made of hollow porcelain, it should still be manageable, as opposed to the more varied solid stone statues found as gatekeepers on other Shrines). And normally the white standard foxes also don't serve as gatekeepers, but are placed right in the center of the Shrine. Worshipers typically place them on the steps of a Shrine as offerings, and the caretakers of the Shrine will then arrange them neatly.
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