Letters to the gods: The form and meaning of ema

Abstract

the votive tablets upon which people write requests and imprecations to the deities and buddhas, are perhaps the most conspicuous and colorful of all the numerous talismanic and religious objects commonly found at Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in Japan. Unlike protective amulets and talismans such as o-mamori 9,9 and fuda L , which are considered to contain the sacred powers of the deities enshrined at the religious site and which are taken away as representations and symbols of that power, ema are left at the site to act as a medium through which the wishes and needs of supplicants may be made known to the figures of worship enshrined there. They are not the only objects to operate in this way, for various other objects, including round stones and the slender wooden sticks known as gomagi ~J , which are later consigned to the flames of the ritual fire ceremony known as goma a