Monday, September 27, 2010

Tenmangu Shrine, Tsudera

soja6502

The Tenmangu Shrine in the village of Tsudera is located a little off the Kibi Bike Path, and is a fairly standard, small, local shrine, but it is my nature to not be able to pass by a Torii without going in to explore.

soja6507

The honden backs right up to the Sanyo Expressway and the shrine was newly reconstructed using money from the construction project. The honden was decorated as this particular saturday in June was the annual matsuri.

soja6503

In front of the honden were the offerings laid out for the kami, in this case Tenjin, the deified identity of Sugawara Michizane.

soja6506

What was unusual, and something I don't remember seeing before is that flowers were used. Thats a Buddhist practise, and though officially "separated" by the government, buddhism and shinto evolved symbiotically and one can still find evidence of the mix. Also unusually this shrine, and others in the area, still had a buddhist bell.

soja6505

Deep in the shadows of the interior of the honden peeking out from behind a screen was Sugawara himself.

3 comments:

  1. Wow, is the Sugawara statue the shintai, then? Thank you for these.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Possibly, though the shintai should usually remain invisible, so maybe the statue was guarding

    ReplyDelete
  3. Eme & Mimi desu
    Thank you for these
    your pics are so great ^^
    We really like your blog so we are linking you in our new blog, come and check it, it may interest you!
    Yoroshiku~!

    ReplyDelete