※This article was published at October 2014.※
If you have been to a Japanese shrine, you must have seen those two lions sitting at the shrine entrance or in front of the main building.
Those protector lions are called “Komainu” in Japanese.
They are not exactly lions, but mythical creatures between dog and lion.
Usually you can find them in front of shinto shrines, but also in front of some Buddhist temples where they protect sacred places from evil spirits.
As you can see, even if their shapes might be different, they always have something in common.
One lion has its mouth open to say “a” and the other one keeps his mouth closed to say the sound “n” or “aum”.
These sounds are the first and last sounds of Japanese alphabet, but it also represents alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.
When you go to Japan, let’s look for Komainu in temples and shrines.
There are many different shapes to discover.
More about “komainu” in English:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komainu
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