Ema at Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine in Kamakura.

Ema (絵馬) are small wooden plaques on which Shintō worshipers write their prayers or wishes. The ema are then left hanging up at the shrine, where the kami (spirits or gods) can read them. They tend to be fairly uniform in size and shape, but many have different pictures painted on them, of animals or other Shinto imagery, and they often have the word negai (願意) or 'Wish' written along the side. Stereotypically, the image on the plaque would be of a horse, uma or ma in Japanese (馬); ema means, literally, "horse picture". View down the stairs at Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine Tsurugaoka is a shrine in the city of Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. ... Crowds of visitors in Kamakura (Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine) Kamakura (Japanese: 鎌倉市; -shi) is a city located in Kanagawa, Japan. ... A torii at Itsukushima Shrine Shinto (神道 Shintō) (sometimes called Shintoism) is a native religion of Japan and was once its state religion. ... Jinja may be Jinja (Uganda), a city in Uganda close to the source of the Nile River Jinja (shrine), a shrine for the Shinto religion in Japan This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Kami (神) is the Japanese for god. The word is used to indicate any sort of god, beings of a higher place or belonging to a different sphere of existence. ...

Unlike in most Western traditions, where one prays to revere, praise, and bless God, in Shintō, people tend to ask the kami for a wide variety of things, ranging from world peace down to good scores on the next exam. At some of the more central and popular shrines, such as Meiji Shrine in Tokyo, one can find ema in many languages, as tourists leave their own wishes and prayers. The central sanctuary where the Meiji emperor is enshrined. ... The modern skyline of Tokyo is highly decentralized. ...

See Also

• Omikuji - fortune strips purchased at shrines and temples

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Ema (Shinto)