| Torii are to Shinto architecture as minarets are to mosques and as bell towers (campanili) are to the architecture of churches. Bell towers stand sometime beside and sometime atop churches, and minarets belong at the vertices of mosques' typically quadrilateral grounds, but the torii of Shinto, situated typically at the perimeters of sacred precincts, are often at substantial distances - hundreds of meters - from the shrines to which they belong, and not infrequently they even mark locations that are thereby recognized as endued with allodynamism, but where there are not any man-made shrines at all. |
Some torii, such as the one seen above through a foreground of cherry blossoms in spring, are painted a vermilion color; this practice is thought to have been introduced into Japanese tradition from China during the Heian era. Cherry blossom season is a festival occasion when Shinto shrines are much visited. The torii on the right belongs to the the Hakone shrine on Lake Ashinoko, beneath he snowy summit of Mt. Fuji—“Fuji-san”—in the background. |
|
| Below, the Futamigaura Rocks and their environs at the shore of Ise Bay are similarly marked as an allodynamically potent location. |
|
|
Examples of Architecture for Access to Allodynes . . . |