Komainu (guardian lion-dogs)
A pair of lion-like guardians at the entrance to a Shinto shrine or a Buddhist temple, one usually with its mouth open and the other with it closed. They are there to keep evil away from the kami.
Meaning
Komainu sit in pairs at the entrance to shrine buildings, beside the Torii (shrine gate) or along the approach. The Encyclopedia of Shinto gives the name as “Korean lions”, JAANUS as “Korean dog”. Most are stone, though some are bronze, iron, wood or ceramic. A pair is usually male and female, and one of them may have a horn. Typically one has its mouth open and the other has it closed. This is the a-un pose, after the first and last letters of the Sanskrit alphabet; some pairs both have open mouths. Jinja Honchō, the association of Shinto shrines, describes them as mythological creatures that look a little like lions and says the statues are guardians, keeping evil influences out of the jinja. They stand at shrines and temples across Japan today.
Origin and history
The Encyclopedia of Shinto traces guardian beasts like these back, by report, to Egypt or India; the ones that reached Japan came from Tang China. A second style arrived from Song China in the Kamakura period and is often called kara-jishi, “Chinese lions”. Koma is an old name for Korea (JAANUS identifies it with the kingdom of Koguryo), but the encyclopedia suggests the word may only have meant “foreign”, since the figures merely passed through the peninsula. In the Heian period they were indoor objects too: JAANUS records komainu used as weights and door-stops for the curtains and screens of the Seiryōden in the Kyoto palace.
A lion and a dog that became one pair
In the early Heian period, JAANUS explains, the two figures were different animals. The one on the left was the shishi, a lion with its mouth open. The one on the right was the komainu proper, a dog with its mouth closed and sometimes a horn on its head. In time the name komainu came to cover both, and the two grew alike except for their mouths.
Where to see old komainu
JAANUS names a painted wooden pair of the tenth or eleventh century at Yakushiji in Nara, fourteen painted and lacquered wooden figures of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries at Itsukushima Jinja in Hiroshima prefecture, and the stone pair inside the south gate of Tōdaiji in Nara, made by the twelfth-century Chinese sculptor Chen Heqing (Chinnakei).
Foxes and other guardians
Not every shrine has lion-dogs. Jinja Honchō notes that some jinja have animals linked with their kami instead, such as foxes, wolves or monkeys, and that these statues are guardians in the same way. The foxes are Inari’s (kitsune).
Kara-jishi
Henri Joly’s Legend in Japanese Art (1908) describes the Buddhist stone lions called kara-jishi as standing at temple gates “like the Koma Inu”, with fierce expressions, large eyes, curly manes, bushy tails and curls of hair on their legs. In art they come with peonies or with a sacred jewel. The Encyclopedia of Shinto uses the same name for the style that came from Song China.
Read next
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- The same shape in Traditional tattoo motifsShellback turtleA sailor’s tattoo for crossing the equator. A sailor who has crossed the line and been initiated by “King Neptune” is a shellback, and the turtle says so.
See also
Torii (shrine gate), Kitsune (fox), Kitsune (fox), Kirin, Raijin and Fūjin (thunder and wind), Kamon (family crests) and the mitsudomoe.
Sources
- Komainu (Encyclopedia of Shinto), Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University, “Komainu” (Nakayama Kaoru), Kokugakuin University, entry text
- komainu (JAANUS), JAANUS: Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System, “komainu”, JAANUS (Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System), entry text
- Jinja (Jinja Honchō), Jinja Honchō (Association of Shinto Shrines), “Jinja” (English pamphlet), Jinja Honchō, p. 5, “Koma Inu”
- Henri L. Joly, Legend in Japanese Art (1908), Henri L. Joly, Legend in Japanese Art: A Description of Historical Episodes, Legendary Characters, Folk-lore, Myths, Religious Symbolism Illustrated in the Arts of Old Japan, London: John Lane, 1908, John Lane (Internet Archive, University of Toronto copy), no. 425, “Karashishi”
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 10, 2026. How we research
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