This Fine Art America puzzle by Bob Phillips measures 18 X 24 inches and includes 500 pieces. It is made from premium 0.2 inch thick paper and includes a semi-gloss coating on the top surface.
Fushimi Inari Shrine is the head shrine of the god Inari, located in Fushimi Ward in Kyoto. It is famous for its thousands of vermilion torii gates.
Also called kitsune, foxes are considered the messengers of Inari, resulting in numerous fox statues throughout the shrine. Kitsune are often seen holding a ball or key in their mouth. The ball is a symbol of wholeness and fertility while the key signifies access to rice storage indicating a good life. In my default photo, the fox carries a key in its mouth. On my second photo, the fox has a ball in its mouth.
Fushimi Inari Shrine is always open and admission is free.
"Kitsune have been a part of Japanese religious culture for as long as the culture has existed in any meaningful sense. Long before Japan came under imperial rule, it was populated by nomadic tribes whose spirit worlds were fueled by deeply held polytheistic animist beliefs. (It wasn’t until the arrival of Chinese Buddhists and Confucians in the 6th century AD that these beliefs would be collectively termed Shintoism.)
To these nomads, the entire natural world, both animate and inanimate, alive or dead, was imbued with spirits. And the fox, a creature native to the archipelago and in abundance in prehistoric Japan’s dense forests, slowly began to take on a mystical significance.
By at least the 8th century, and likely even earlier, shrines were dedicated to kitsune, or more precisely, the fox incarnations of the Shinto kami, Inari – the goddess of rice, harvests, agriculture, fertility and more. Inari was said to have arrived in Japan during its creation riding on the back of a white fox. A harsh famine had struck the land, ushering the goddess from her heavenly abode into the land of mankind carrying grains to liberate the starving people from their hunger.
In 711 AD, the first Inari shrine was erected on the eponymous Inari Mountain in Kyoto to solidify the significance of the myth. Kitsune would operate as the guardian protectors of the shrine, and their physical presence throughout the nation would forever be a reminder of the benevolent goddess’s deeds.
The concept of god is pretty flexible in Japan, and so too are the representations of the kitsune. In their Inari form, kitsune symbolize good harvests, tea and sake, fertility and prosperity, cunning and smarts, business and money, all in equal measures and all at different turns.
The Shinto pantheon is believed to be infinite, but Inari is certainly one of the most important spirits, thus making kitsune among the most important of creatures. The most common depiction of foxes is at Inari shrines, 32,000 of which exist across Japan, making up over 30% of the total number of shrines of any kind.
A pair of stone kitsune usually appear at Inari shrine gates or in the form of sculptures within shrine complexes. They are there to protect both the spirit world and the worshippers within. As such, visitors will leave votive offerings to the foxes, often in the form of tofu (supposedly their favorite food)." (
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