Japanese Name: 豊川吁枳尼真天
Romanized Reading: Toyokawa Dakini Shinten
English Translation: Bountiful River Dakini Deva
Size: Tiny Side Shrine of Toyokawa Inari Tokyo Betsuin
Deity: Dakini
Fox Count: 5
First Visit: 31-Jan-2019
Location: Tokyo-Minato
Address: 1 Chome-4-7 Motoakasaka, Minato City, Tokyo 107-0051
Coordinates: 35.6764 139.7325
The twelfth vulpine side shrine of Toyokawa Inari Tokyo Betsuin. I'm not 100% certain where exactly this one was located, but clearly it was somewhere next to all the flags. This one is another Dakini shrine, even though the name is spelled slightly different than at the earlier one (吃枳尼 VS 吁枳尼). This comes down to variations in so-called Ateji (
当て字 "Right Character"), which refers to the practice of using Kanji to convey pronunciation instead of meaning. This dates back to the time before Hiragana and Katakana were used, and today is mostly found in religious contexts, such as the names of deities. The result is different spellings for the same deity, because clearly Japanese wasn't already confusing enough as it is.
Anyway, four life-sized stone foxes sit in front of this shrine, and one of the two to the right has a little fox kit, thus bringing the vixen side count to 19:42.
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