Round Windows: looking out.

Circular windows are not uniquely Japanese, but they do seem a little more common here traditionally.

Kennin-Ji, the oldest Zen Temple in Kyoto


The former Wilds Gallery, Omori, Iwami Ginzan


Tea room, Chofu gardens, Yamaguchi Pref.


Manor House, Takahashi, Okayama.


Park. Asari, near Gotsu

See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil

The Three Wise Monkeys, Kikazaru who hears no evil, Mizaru, who sees no evil, & Iwazaru, who speaks no evil.

Behind them thousands of Sarubobo (baby monkey), a kind of amulet shaped like a faceless doll.

At a small temple in Gion, not far from the Yasaka Pagoda.

Obon in Gion

Just got back from a couple of days in Kyoto.

It's Obon season, and we were up visiting Yoko's family in Gion.

Last night we went up the hill behind Gion to visit the cemetery at the temple called Otani-san where Yoko has some family buried. The cemetery is all lit up with lanterns.

About half the crowds there were visitng and washing family tombstones, and the other half were tourists taking photos and enjoying the view over the city. There seemed to be more tourists than usual in Kyoto, probably there for the Daimonji fires that will be lit tomorrow night.

The long path leading up to the temple from behind yasaka Shrine is lined with lanterns.

Down around the main temple buildings all the lanterns were painted by local children.

Apparently Shinran, the founder of the True Pure Land sect has his tomb here.

Aakeido. Japanese shopping arcades.

Kyoto City

Covered shopping arcades can be found in most Japanese towns. In the big cities, where most japanese now live, the arcades tend to be glitzy and are likely to have global brands such as McDonalds. In many ways they look like duty-free shopping areas in airports, and consumption as identity is prevalent.

Hakata, Fukuokoa City

In the smaller towns, that continue to depopulate, the arcades can often be like a ghost town, with few people and many shops closed permanently. They tend to be funkier and have stores that sell local products and household goods etc.

Motomachi, Kobe

Kochi City

Kokura, Kitakyushu.

Ohnomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture.

Imamiya Shrine Kyoto

Imamiya Shrine Kyoto

Imamiya is a large shrine complex that was built at its present site in 1001, though established a few years earlier on top of nearby Funaoka Hill. The shrine was established to ward off one of the plagues that periodicly attacked the area. There are many sub-shrines within the grounds, but the 3 main kami are Okuninushi (sometimes called Onamuchi, sometimes Daikokuten), Kotoshironushi, and Inadahime. What is interesting is that these are all Izumo kami. Okuninushi was the Izumo leader who "gave" Japan to Amaterasu's descendants, Kotoshironushi is the Izumo version of Ebisu. There are three distinct versions of Ebisu, one for central Japan, one for northern japan, and one for western Japan. Usually in the Kyoto area they refer to Ebisu as the child of Izanami and Izanagi and hailing from nearby Awajima. Inada is the Izumo "princess" who married Susano after his defeat of the serpent Yamata no Orochi.

The architectural style of the main shrine buildings and impressive gate are 17th Century, but were reconstructed in the early 20th century.

There had earlier been a ceremony at one of the sub-shrines (Munakata-sha, I think), and the offerings (sake and various foods, sakaki branches) were still on the altar.

The area around Imamiya has a nice old atmosphere, and its not surprising that many "Samurai" dramas are filmed here. Heading south from the shrine I spied this wonderful old wall built using roof tiles.

Kyoto Accommodation

Kuga Shrine, Kyoto.

Kuga Shrine lies about 2k south of Kamigamo Shrine, just off Omiya dori. Omiya means "great shrine", and the road name refers to Kuga Shrine. Kuga enshrines the ujigami of the Kamo family. Ujigami is the clan ancestral kami. The kami is Kamotaketsunumi, one of the original kami that descended from Takamagahara (the High Plain of Heaven) to Kysushu with Jimmu, the mythical first Emperor, and then guided Jimmu to Yamato.

Kuga Shrine is a subordinate shrine of Kamigamo Shrine, and Kamotaketsunumi is the grandfather of Kamigamo's main kami. Records indicate that the shrine was already in existence in 859. The current shrine buildings were built in 1628 and are in the style of the Engi era (11th Century)

All that remains of a once mighty, sacred cedar tree.

Akiba Shrine, Nishigamo, Kyoto.

In the foothills of NW Kyoto City stands Kyoto Golf Club. Bisecting the convoluted course is a narrow valley reached by a small road that passes Shakuhachi Pond. After passing under the bridge traversed by the golf carts one comes to Akiba Shrine. Enshrined here is one of the Fire Protection deities. There are many Akiba Shrines scattered throughout Japan, the original shrine is in Shizuoka, and the Akiba cult was spread by Yamabushi, the mountain warrior monks of the shugendo religion.

The shrine is in a state of poor repair, and seems abandoned, but on closer inspection one sees that the altars in front of the small hondens have fresh offerings placed upon them.

There is also a small Inari shrine, also with fresh offerings. Probably no priests visit the shrine. Akiba (sometimes pronounced Akiha) is classified as a "folk" kami, which basically means its very popular but has nothing to do with the Imperial kami that State Shinto is based on.

Further evidence of the Shugendo connection is the small altar to Fudo Myojin, a Buddhist deity of Indian origin that was particularly revered by followers of Shugendo. The altar is at a water purification spot, the channel above brings ice-cold mountain water which falls onto the yamabushi in a form of water purification. Shugendo was outlawed by the Meiji government in their drive to create the national State religion of Shinto. It became legal again after 1945, but is now just a pale imitation of what it was.

Enduring Identities. A review.

Enduring Identities: The guise of Shinto in contemporary Japan.

John K. Nelson

University of Hawaii Press

ISBN: 0-8248-2259-5

324 pp

The Japanese religion known today as Shinto remains little understood by many visitors to Japan, and even by many Japanese. The most often used description of it as "the ancient religion of Japan" is simply inaccurate and misleading.

For anyone seeking to understand Shinto, Enduring Identities is a great place to start.

John Nelson spent a year at Kyoto's Kamigamo Jinja, one of the major shrines in the Kyoto area, and the fieldwork and interviews he did there explore the forms that Shinto takes today.

Kamigamo Jinja pre-dates Kyoto, and the book contains a lot of interesting history of the area that one normally doesn't find in the standard tourist literature, and particularly interesting is the information on the area being primarily settled by immigrants from what is now the Korean peninsular.

By interviewing many of the visitors to the shrine, as well as the parishioners, and the staff and priests, Nelson builds up a description of what Shinto is and means that is far more diverse than, and sometimes contradictory to, the commonly heard cliches. He also does an excellent job of presenting the relationship between contemporary Shinto and State Shinto, the nationalistic, militaristic cult that held sway in Japan for the first half of the twentieth century. Anyone interested in the Yasukuni Shrine issue will find it informative.

There is an interesting chapter on the "sacred space" of the shrine that is useful and relevant to an understanding of how such concepts manifest themselves in many areas of Japanese life, not just shrines and temples.

The longest chapter concerns itself with the annual cycle of rituals and ceremonies that take place at the shrine. Being both very old (7th century), and important, Kamigamo is home to some major ceremonies, most notably what is commonly called the Aoi Festival, and also the lesser-known Crow Sumo, but the information is also relevant to an understanding of Shinto rituals in general.

A book that would be rewarding to anyone interested in Kyoto or contemporary Japanese cultural anthropology as well as Shinto and Japanese religion.

this review originally published on JapanVisitor

Taishogun Shrine, Nishigamo, Kyoto

Taishogun is short for Sei-Taishogun, which translates liberally as "barbarian fighting generalissimo", known more commonly as Shogun. Taishogun shrines, however, have nothing to do with the earthly shoguns, rather it refers to a group of kami that offer protection from the different directions. There are 4 Taishogun shrines in Kyoto, one each for the 4 directions, and this one is for protection from the north.
The shrine here was originally established by the local villagers who were rooftile makers. Taking into consideration that rooftile technology was imported from the Korean peninsular, and that this area, the Kyoto basin previously known as Yamashiro, was settled by immigrants from Korea, its a safe bet that this was a Korean shrine. The ruins of the old kilns are said to be still nearby.

Once Kyoto was established at the end of the 8th Century, it became a Taishogun shrine as Chinese geomancy was very much in favor at that time. The main kami is said to be Susano, specifically the Susano of Yasaka Shrine in Gion, and originally the kami of Yasaka was Gozu Tenno, a Korean god who later came to be equated with Susano.

Due to its location near Kamigamo Shrine, there are tatesuna sandcones in front to the hondens.

Nishigamo Mura-sha

After leaving Kamigamo shrine I set off t0 explore the foothills of the edge of the city to the west of Kamigamo in Nishigamo. On my walks I hope to discover the little-known "folk" shrines that were the norm in traditional Japan before the creation of State Shinto in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Sure enough, I found one at the top of one of the villages in the area. This one is called Mura-sha, which simply means "Village Shrine". It had this wonderful natural wood torii.

Due no doubt to its proximity to Kamigamo Shrine, the hondens at the rear each had a pair of tatesuna, but unlike any other tatesuna I've seen, these each had a stone protruding from the top. I havent been able to find out what these stones represent, but my guess is that they represent Iwakura , (stone seat), which are rock outcroppings usually on the top of mountains where the Kami descend to earth.

Kamigamo Shrine

Kamigamo Shrine is situated in a quiet residential area in the north of Kyoto, and is a little off the main tourist routes and therefore often less-crowded than shrines in the city centre, though no less impressive.
The shrine is a designated World Heritage site, and most of the shrine buildings are classified as Important Cultural Properties.
Established in the 7^th Century, a hundred years before Kyoto (Heiankyo) was founded, it is nevertheless about one hundred years younger than its sister shrine, Shimogamo Shrine.
Both shrines were built by the powerful Kamo family who moved to this area from Yamato (Nara) probably to control this outlying area of mainly immigrants from the Korean Peninsula.
When the Imperial capital moved to Heiankyo (present day Kyoto) the Kamo shrines enjoyed imperial patronage and support that has continued to the present.
Kamo Sai, the correct name for Aoi Matsuri, one of the 3 major festivals of Kyoto, ends here after beginning in the Imperial Palace and passing through Shimogamo Shrine.
One approaches the shrine across a large open space that is lawn, rather than the more usual gravel, and this gives it the feel of a park.

The most unusual thing about the shrine is the 2 large sand cones that flank the entrance to the main shrine building. Known as Tatesuna, opinion differs as to their original meaning, but the most commonly accepted is that they represent the sacred mountain just to the north of the shrine. Small cones of salt outside restaurant entrances are said to derive from the Tatesuna. Many of the smaller, local shrines in this part of Kyoto also have the tatesuna.

The sacred mountain is Koyama, about 2K to the north, and it is believed that the shrine was originally built much closer to it. Interestingly, Koyama is a Kannabiji, a sacred mountain where the kami resides inside it, rather than the more usual situation of a mountain that the Kami sometimes descends onto. Kannabi seems to be a concept from Izumo, and the original home shrine of the Kamo clan is at the base of Mt. Katsuragi between Osaka and Nara, and it is also a kannabiji with an Izumo kami, so there might be a connection between the Kamo and ancient Izumo.

On September 9^th the shrine holds the Crow Sumo ceremony, where young boys from the neighborhood compete at sumo to entertain the gods. Before the sumo, shrine priests perform rituals while emulating the call and movements of crows, hence the name.
Entrance to the shrine is free, but at 9:30 most mornings there is a short tour of the shrine including a purification ritual for which a 500yen “donation” is asked.
With advance notice, groups can book a tour of the shrine with a lecture in English, plus view some of the shrines treasures not normally open to the public.
Kamigamo Shrine can be reached by Kyoto Bus numbers 30, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, and 39, or Kyoto City Bus numbers 4, 46, and 67.

See more photos of Kamigamo here
Review of a book on Kamigamo here