Showing posts with label kitsune. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kitsune. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Shrines of Day 67

 

For many pilgrims, I believe the main priority is to get from temple to temple. The temples are the focus. For me, however, the temples were just reference points on an exploratory walk. The sites between the temples were just as important, and I tried to stop in at every single shrine I passed, both to learn any interesting local history and myths, and to find unique and interesting art.


On Day 67 of my walk around the Shingon Kyushu pilgrimage, I started the day in Sasebo, Nagasaki, visiting a pilgrimage temple then headed north out of town to the Ainoura River valley. These first four photos are from Nakazato Hachiman Shrine, a fairly standard village shrine to Hachiman, by one count the most common shrine in Japan.


With its Hizen-style torii, and modern komainu, there were no surprises here. Like most village shrines numerous smaller shrines had been brought here from neighboring areas in the early part of the 20th century.


I visited nearby temple number 74, Tozenji before heading on up the valley. In Tabarucho I stopped in at Norito Shrine. A little further I saw the unusual shimenawa of Yodohime Shrine.


The next four photos are from my next stop, an unnamed Inari Shrine.


If you include small, roadside shrines without buildings, then Inari, rather than Hachiman, becomes the most common shrine in Japan.


The vast majority of Inari shrines only date back to the Edo period when Inari became so popular.


Continuing to climb my next stop was Kamiari Shrine.


There is absolutely no info on this shrine which was obviously more substantial in earlier times, but now is just a small, stone honden.


It enshrines Amaterasu.


Not far from Kamiari Shrine I spent quite a bit of time exploring Saikoji Temple, number 73 on the pilgrimage with a notable Giant Fudo statue. I had now climbed to more than 300 meters above sea level and while heading to a mountain tunnel that would take me over to the next valley I could see an Oyamazumi Shrine in tye distance set in a tell-tale grove of trees.



Dropping down into and then slowly descending the Sasa River Valley my first stop was another Oyamazumi Shrine, this one with a unique old-growth ecosystem. This was once a coal mining area and after a brief stop at the local coal mine museum I visited the last pilgrimage temple of the day, Saifukuji Temle with its cave shrine.


I carried on down the valley and just before reaching Yoshii Station and the train back into Sasebo I stopped in at a very small shrine. I have no idea of the shrines name as I couldnt read the eroded kanji on the torii, and can not find it on the map, but it did have a nice pair of komainu.


If you enjoyed this post you might also enjoy the post on shrines of day 66.


Monday, February 5, 2024

Kochi Daijingu & Yosakoi Inari Shrine

 


Kochi Daijingu is located just outside the main gate of Kochi Castle, and within the grounds is Yosakoi Inari Shrine.


Kochi Daijingu, with its unique golden torii, is a branch of Ise Shrine, but I can not find much info on it beyond that it was established in 1873. The Inari shrine is far more popular and has more info.


There were a lot of chickens wandering around the grounds, something I have seen before at shrines, but not so very often....


The Inari Shrine was renamed Yosakoi Inari quite recently in honor of Kochi being the origin of the Yosakoi dance.


The shrine originally was in the property of the Yamauchi Clan, and was moved to Kochi when the clan sold their property in early Meiji. I believe it was originally in Kyoto as a few of the enshrined kami are specifically local Kyoto kami.


As a branch of Ise, the Daijingu enshrines Amaterasu. The chicken has been considered the messenger of Amaterasu in the same way that the fox is considered the messenger of Inari.


Consequently, there are no komainu at the shrine, just a pair of recently added chicken statues and the usual foxes.


The previous post from day 16 of my walk along the Shikoku Ohenro pilgrimage was Kochi Castle.


Sunday, November 26, 2023

Togitsu Yutoku Inari Shrine

 


Not far from the Honjin I discovered in Togitsu I encountered a small Inari Shrine.


Apparently, it is a branch of the famous Yutoku Inari Shrine not far away in southern Saga and not a branch of the head Inari shrine Fushimi Inari near Tokyo.


As with almost all Inari shrines, there were fox guardian statues. Though Inari is often mistakenly referred to as a "fox god", the foxes are messengers of Inari, not representations of Inari


There were multiple vermillion torii, though no actual "tunnel" as at many Inari shrines.


Surprisingly all the ema depicted horses, as this was spring 2014, a "Horse Year".


There were multiple Inari shrines in the grounds. Inari is well known for being a "peronalized" kami that exists in thousands of thousands of different forms.


The Chinses style guardian lion was unusual, though not too surprising as this was Nagasaki.


Thet two main representations of Inari are either as an old man carrying rice, or, as seen here, as a young maiden on the back of a white fox.


This representation has connections with the primarily Buddhist identity of Inari as Dakiniten.


Inari is sometimes connected to Benzaiten, another goddess with heavy Buddhist-shinto cross-over, and that may be behind the small figurine of the white snakes wrapped around the jewel of wisdom.


The previous post in this series on day 64 of my walk around Kyushu was on Togitsu.


Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Wakaura Tenmangu Shrine

 


The steps up to Wakaura Tenmangu Shrine are steep and rough, but not as long as the stairs up to the neighboring Kishu Toshogu Shrine.


Wakaura Tenmangu is older than the Toshogu by about 7 centuries, although the Tenmangu was rebuilt about ten years before the Toshogu was built in the 17th century.


Enshrining Tenjin, the deified form of Sugawara Michizane, known as a god of poetry and scholarship, Tenmangu shrines are where students head to before taking exams.


It is said that Michizane himself was here in 901 when the ship taking hime to "exile" in Dazaifu dropped anchor here to await favorable winds. He is said to have composed two poems here.


Wakaura, or Wakanoura, literally means Bay of Poetry, and Michizane was adding to a long list of poems composed in the area since ancient times.


It is said that Naoki Tachibana stopped here on his return from Daizaifu, where Michizane's grave was, sometime between 964 and 968, and established the shrine.


The shrine was destroyed in 1585 during the invasion of the area by Hideyoshi. It was rebuilt in 1604 by Yukinaga Asano and employed the leading craftsmen of the day.


The painted carvings of animals around the eaves of the main building are particularly noteworthy. There are several sub-shrines within the grounds, and great views from the shrine over Waknoura.


The previous post in this series on attractions of Wakayama City was the neighbouring Kishu Toshogu Shrine.


Thursday, July 13, 2023

Yutoku Inari Shrine Part 2 Up Above

 


This is the second half of a piece on the famous Yutoku Inari Shrine in Kashima Saga. The first part, Yutoku Inari Shrine Part 1 Down Below,  looked at the shrine and its buildings at ground level.


The main hall of the shrine is on top of an 18-meter-high platform extending out from the hillside. Steps lead up but there is also a recently installed elevator.


Like the Romon and Kaguraden down below, the main hall is unusually decorative and colorful.


On the hillside across the river is Yutoku Inari Park, sometimes called the Outer Garden. In mid-February, it's not very colorful but in the Spring and Autumn, it is. From the park, there are numerous observatories to view the shrine


Above the main hall is the Okunoin, the inner shrine, and leading up to it are several paths lined with the corridors of red torii, a  typical feature of Inari shrines.


Each torii is usually, but not always, donated by a business, and their name is painted on it. Inari is a very popular kami for businesses with many private shrines erected on business premises.


Inari is, by one method of counting, the most popular shrine in Japan, though it did not become so popular until the Edo Period.


There is no mention of Inari in the ancient texts, though in Meiji the government established it within the imperial pantheon by deciding that it was, in fact, Ukanomitama, though in reality, like most deities in Japan, Inari has a multitude of identities, origins, and forms.


On the way to the inner shrine you pass numerous smaller shrines and altars, all to different manifestations of Inari.


The original Inari Shrine, and now the head shrine for all Inari shrines, is Fushimi Inari in the south of Kyoto, founded by the mysterious Hata Clan.


Yutoku Inari was established by the wife of one of the Nabeshima lords, rulers of the Kashima area.


Yutoku Inari was considered the family shrine of the Nabeshima, and nearby is the family temple of the Nabeshima, Fumyoji, and while Yutoku Inari is very popular, Fumyoji is almost derelict.