page_title: Ōmiwa Shrine
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Ōmiwa Shrine / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Représentation de face d'anneaux borroméens English: Top view of three-dimensional shapes linked in the Borromean rings configuration which are intended to look like perfect circles when viewed from the top, but which are actually not perfect circles (see other image).
context_page_description: Ōmiwa Shrine, also known as Miwa Shrine, is a Shinto shrine located in Sakurai, Nara Prefecture, Japan. The shrine is noted because it contains no sacred images or objects because it is believed to serve Mount Miwa, the mountain on which it stands. For the same reason, it has a worship hall, but no place for the deity to be housed. In this sense, it is a model of what the first Shinto shrines were like. Ōmiwa Shrine is one of the oldest extant Shinto shrines in Japan and the site has been sacred ground for some of the earliest religious practices in Japan. Because of this, it has sometimes been named as Japan's first shrine. Ōmiwa Shrine is a tutelary shrine of the Japanese sake brewers.
context_section_description: Ōmiwa Shrine is situated in a quiet forest, and built directly in front of Mount Miwa. An ancient Japanese cedar tree (Cryptomeria) can be found on shrine compound, and is considered sacred.  The mountain itself serves as the honden, or main hall, instead of a man-made building.
  Decorations in the form of Borromean rings are found throughout the shrine's buildings. This ornamentation symbolizes the three rings, as "Miwa" is written with the kanji for "three" (三) and "ring" (輪).
  Built in 1984, at 32 m the torii on its sandō is the second highest in Japan. The shrine also has a great shime torii, an ancient form of gate made only with two posts and a rope called shimenawa. It is one of few shrines that has a "triple-torii" (miwa torii) on its grounds. This gate is also one of the few to actually have doors, which bar access to the mountain it enshrines.
  The buildings at Ōmiwa Shrine are a mix of structures built from ancient times to the Edo period.
caption: Borromean rings motif
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