Jingikan

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Jingikan (Jap., ‘Department of Shinto’). One of the two principal administrative branches of the centralized government, the so-called ritsu-ryō state, of the pre-Nara (710–94) and Heian (794–1185) periods. The Dept. of Shinto had jurisdiction over all matters pertaining to the worship of the gods (kami). It supervised the rites of enthronement (Daijōsai), the rites of national purification (Oharae), the festivals of the first fruits and harvest, as well as the upkeep of shrines and the discipline of shrine priests. The Dept. of Shinto was briefly revived with the Meiji Restoration of 1868, only to be abolished in 1871.