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A small brocade pouch amulet sold at Japanese shrines and temples.
Also known as: Japanese amulet, Shrine charm
A cloth pouch containing a blessed inscription, bought at a Shinto shrine or Buddhist temple for a specific purpose — traffic safety, examinations, childbirth. It is meant not to be opened, and to be returned to a shrine after a year.
A small brocade pouch containing a blessed slip of paper or wood, sold at Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in Japan, each type dedicated to a particular concern such as safe travel, academic success, health or childbirth.
Japan
Conventionally not opened — the contents are held to lose their efficacy if the pouch is broken — and returned to a shrine after about a year to be ritually burned, with a new one obtained.
A live devotional practice rather than a historical curiosity: omamori are bought in very large numbers today and shrines maintain the return-and-burn cycle.
A small rectangle of patterned brocade closed at the top with a drawn cord, bearing an embroidered or printed inscription on its face.