Mitama

The character pair 神霊, also read mitama, is used exclusively to refer to a kami's spirit.

[2] Significantly, the term mitamashiro (御魂代, 'mitama representative') is a synonym of shintai, the object which in a Shinto shrine houses the enshrined kami.

Early Japanese definitions of the mitama, developed later by many thinkers like Motoori Norinaga, maintain it consists of several "spirits", relatively independent one from the other.

According to the theory, each of the sub-spirits making up the spirit has a character and a function of its own; they all exist at the same time, complementing each other.

[4] In the Nihon Shoki, the deity Ōnamuchi (Ōkuninushi) actually meets his kushi-mitama and saki-mitama in the form of Ōmononushi, but does not even recognize them.

No separate enshrinement of the mitama of a kami has taken place since the rationalization and systematization of Shinto actuated by the Meiji Restoration.