Twenty-Two Shrines

The system was established during the Heian period and formed part of the government's systematization of Shinto during the emergence of a general anti-Chinese sentiment and the suppression of the Taoist religion.

[1] It involved the establishment of the shrines as important centers of public life in Japan.

[1] By the year 806, 4,870 households were assigned to Shinto shrines while the government provided a national endowment for their upkeep.

There are historians who explained that the majority on the list involved those with central lineages supporting the imperial house, sites of cults that gained popular significance, and shrines in locations with the presence of Buddhist institutions.

[3] Under the Ritsuryō law system, the shrines that the Imperial Court would present offerings to for rites such as the ki'nensai (祈年祭), a service to pray for a good harvest, were mostly decided by the Engishiki Jinmyōchō (延喜式神名帳, Engishiki Shrine Name Book), but once the Ritsuryō system began to deteriorate, the offerings were only given to a select few shrines.

In 965, Emperor Murakami ordered that Imperial messengers were sent to report important events to the guardian kami of Japan.

[5] Near the end of the Heian period, there was a movement to add Itsukushima Shrine to the list, but it did not happen.

When the Nijūni-sha are considered as a grouped set, they are conventionally presented in order of rank, not in terms of the chronological sequence in which they were designated.