Thursday, September 22, 2011

The art & offerings of Tanegaike Benzaiten

tott503

Part of my interest in visiting shrines is to see the various forms of art and offerings that are on display. At the Tanegaike Benzaiten Shrine near the Tottori sand dunes snakes/serpents are the theme due to their association with Benzaiten.

tott507

Benzaiten is sometimes found in shrines, sometimes in temples, and like much of japanese religion historically she crosses the boundaries between both, so its not unusual to see a buddhist statue within a shrine, or vice versa.

tott512

Like the nearby sand art displays, these representations of the dragon of the legend are made out of sand.

tott515

Because snakes like eggs, fresh eggs are left as offerings in front of the shrines. I have also seen this at Omiwa, where the legend is of Okuninushi appearing in the form of a snake.

tott510


tott516

While plastic flowers are not uncommon, real ones are still used.....

1 comment:

  1. Thank you so much for this post! I'd love to put up a link to it on my own blog dedicated to Benten!
    bentenlaughing.com
    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete