Daisen-ji Temple 29 Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage

 

Daisenji was said to be founded in 718 when a man, while hunting a deer, came to the realization that killing was a sin and so became a monk and enshrined a statue of Jizo in a hermitage on the mountain. 

In 865 it became a Tendai sect temple and grew into a major shugendo site with 160 temples and 3,000 warrior monks.

Of course, in early Meiji when Shugendo was outlawed and the government decreed the separation of Buddhas and kami, followed by a campaign against Buddhism, everything changed and many structures were lost.

What is now the main hall was the Dainichi Hall, and the Jizo was moved there.

Higher up the mountain where the main temple once was, a lodging facility was turned into a Shinto shrine, the okunoin of Ogamiyama Shrine I stopped in at on the way up the mountain.

A development of the Jizo faith that developed out of Mount Daisen was for the protection of livestock.

This led to Daisen Gyuuba Ichi, the only livestock market with a religious twist. By the Edo Period it was one of the top 3 livestock markets in Japan, and in the Meiji Period it was the biggest.

The statue of the cow is said to have been made out of the nose-rings of cows.

Nearby is a Goma Hall with Fudo Myoo...

And near to that the Kannon Hall, the goal for this pilgrimage.

From here the path leads further up the mountain to the Niomon. Obviously this was the entrance to the main temple in earlier times.

From the Niomon, the path goes up to the shrine.

At 700 metres, it is the longest shrine approach in Japan.

During the opening of the mountain ceremonies each year, thousands of people carrying torches snake up the path, making an awesome sight.

It was getting late, and I wanted to get down the mountain a bit, as I was sleeping out that night and it would be warmer the lower I would be able to get, so I chose not to go all the way up to the shrine

The previous post was on the Amida Hall at this site...

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The Biggest Shimenawa in the World

Izumo Taisha

Day 8 of my walk along the Japan Sea Coast would start up on Cape Hinomisaki, where I ended day 7, but to get there I had to change buses in Taisha, the area around Izumo Taisha, so I had a quick look around.

Adjacent to the main shrine compound is the Kaguraden. Ostensibly for the performance of kagura, in actuality its main use is for weddings, of which there are many. As with all sacred sites in shint, a sacred rope called a shimenawa is hung on the building. The difference here is that it is the biggest shimenawa in the world.

It is more than 13 metres long and weighs 5 tons. Like most shimenawa it is made of rice straw. It is replaced every 5 to 8 years and is made by villagers in the small town of Iinan. Shimenawa were originally made from hemp, a plant widely grown and used in Japan until outlawed during the American occupation.

The previous post was on Gongenjima and Uryu Harbour, where I finished walking on day 7.

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Amida-do at Daisenji Temple

 

High on Mount Daisen was a major Shugendo site centred on Daisenji Temple.

At its peak, it had a huge number of sub-temples and other structures in three distinct areas, though with the separation of Buddhas and Kami followed by the suppression of Buddhism in early Meiji, they have been reduced to only 10 from 42.

In the former Saimyoin area the Amida Hall remains.

An earlier building was destroyed by a flood, but this version was built in 1552, and used some of the wood that was salvaged from the original.

The Amida statue inside was carved in the 12th century, and along with a pair of attendant statues and the hall itself, is an Important Cultural Property.

Behind the Amida Hall is a stone torii, all that remains of a Sanbo Koshin Shrine.

Sanbo Koshin is a Buddhist deity created in Japan. Sanbo refers to the three treasures of Buddhism, and Sanbo Koshin is a deity that protects the three treasures.

With a Buddhist deity, the shrine was destroyed in the early Meiji.

A path leads through the forest to the Sada River, with the other parts of the temple complex on the other side. There is now a road bridge just downstream, but the river can be crossed on foot most of the time.

Upstream, the banks of the river are lined with piles of stones. This is Sai no Kawara, a boundary between the world of the living and the dead where children who die before their parents wait and pile the stones before being saved by Jizo, the primary deity of Daisenji Temple.

The previous post was on the Yokai Temple Enjuin with 108 paintings by Mizuki Shigeru.

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Inter Media Station

 

After finishing the second day of walking along the Sasaguri Pilgrimage, we headed back into Fukuoka for the night.

Living in a very rural place, the architecture of big cities is a delight for me.

We went to IMS, long name Inter Media Station, close to Tenjin station.

It is a multi-storey mall, primarily for shopping but also plenty of eateries and event spaces as well.

A litlle bit too pricey for me....though as a countyry hick I can marvel at the bright lights and shiny baubles..

The last three photos are not IMS, but the Daido building, a life insurance company, then the famous ACROS Fukuoka, and finally inside another mall in the Tenjin Station building...

The previous post was on the last temples of the day in Sasaguri.

If you would like to subscribe by email, just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published or made public. I post new content almost every day, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the last ten posts