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A glance over the list in the 9th and 10th books of the Yengishiki shows at once that there were many gods who were worshipped in more than half-a-dozen different localities at the same time; but exact calculation is impossible, because in many cases only the names of the temples are given, and we are left quite in the dark as to the individuality of the gods to whom they were sacred.
Besides the twenty-seven Norito which are found in the Yengishiki, published at the opening of the tenth century, there are many others composed for single occasions. Examples of these are found in the Government Gazettes. Even Christian natives of Japan can use much of the phraseology of the Norito while addressing their petitions on behalf of their chief magistrate to the King of kings.
In the Yengishiki the amounts and nature of the offerings are stated with great minuteness, but it will be sufficient if the kinds of articles offered are alone mentioned here. It will be seen, by comparison with the text of the norito, that they had varied somewhat since the date when the ritual was composed.
Besides these 3,132 shrines, which are distinguished as Shikidai, that is contained in the catalogue of the Yengishiki, there were a large number of enumerated shrines in temples scattered all over the country, in every village or hamlet, of which it was impossible to take any account, just as at the present day there are temples of Hachiman, Kompira, Tenjin sama, San-no sama and Sengen sama, as they are popularly called, wherever twenty or thirty houses are collected together.
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