Changing images of Shinto: Sanja takusen or the three oracles

‘The Oracles of the Three Shrines’ (sanja takusen) are three short oracular utterances attributed to the shrine deities of Ise, Hachiman and Kasuga. ¹ In practice, sanja takusen usually means the three oracle texts as they appear inscribed or printed on a hanging scroll. Versions of the sanja takusen scroll have been known in Japan for almost six hundred years. The deity of Ise (Amaterasu, Tenshō Kōtaijingū) usually forms the central focus, flanked by Hachiman lower down to the right and Kasuga to the left. ² The various examples of the scroll are by no means identical but they bear a sufficiently strong ‘family resemblance’ to one another for the sanja takusen to be regarded as an iconographical unity. All versions of the scroll contain at least one, usually two and occasionally all three of the following elements: the names or titles of the three shrines; one to three oracular texts (takusen); one or more images of the personified deities of the shrines.