Nishinomiya Ebisu Shrine

 

Nishinomiya Ebisu Shrine is certainly the most popular and well-known shrine in the city of Nishinomiya in Hyogo.

Nishinomiya means "West Shrine" and the shrine the city is named after is actually Hirota Shrine.

To the north of Nishinomiya Ebisu, Hirota Shrine was in ancient times a very important shrine, and it is believed that the Ebisu Shrine was sometimes referred to as "Southern Shrine" indicating its branch relationship to Hirota.

There are three hondens behind the main shrine. One enshrines Ebisu, one enshrines Amaterasu and Okuninushi, and the third enshrines Susano.

The enshrinement of Amaterasu and Okuninushi occurred in the early years of Meiji when the shrine officially separated from Hirota. Not sure when the Susano enshrinement happened.

There seems to have been some dispute over the Okuninushi Shrine. It seems at one point the whole shrine was renamed Okuninushi Shrine but then later separated from the Ebisu Shrine. After 1945 the Okuninushi became a sub-shrine of the Ebisu.

The main hall is a post-war reconstruction of the 17th century building. I also believe it underwent further reairs following the Hanshin Earthquake.

There are numerous secondary shrines within the large grounds, including the aforementioned Okuninushi Nishi Shrine which also enshrines Sukunahiko, and a Kojin Shrine (photo 4 )

There is also an Atago Shrine, and an Okiebisu shrine, enshrining the "wild/turbulent" aspect of Ebisu relocated to within the grounds  in early Meiji. (second to last photo)

There is a Benzaiten Shrine and a Rokkosan Shrine, an Inari Shrine, but also an Ugatama Shrine from before Meiji when Inari became equated with Ugatama. There are two shrines connected to sake brewing, a Matsuo Shrine, and an Umemiya Shrine.

The most interesting subsidiary shrine for me was the Hyakudayu Shrine which enshrines a kami connected to puppeteering. It is said that one of the reasons for the widespread adoption of Ebisu nationwide was due to Ebisu stories told in puppet plays.

Nishinomiys Ebisu is considered by some to be the head shrine of all Ebisu shrines nationwide, and the version of Ebisu here is the one based on Hiruko, sometimes called "Leech Child" born of Izanagi and Izanami who failed to follow the correct protocol and so their first child was born without limbs or skeleton. It was placed in a basket and set adrift.

One version of the story has the basket sailing to Hokkaido where the child is raised by Ainu. Another version of Ebisu is equated with Kotoshirunushi, a son of Okuninushi, and so some consider his main shrine of Miho Shrine in Shimane to be the head Ebisu shrine.

Certainly the pairing of Ebisu and Daikoku, another variation of  Okuninushi, as two of the Seven Lucky Gods, explains Ebisu's popularity among businesses and commerce, whereas Ebisu as the patron deity of fishermen suggests a different heritage perhaps.

The Toka Ebisu Festival takes place on January 10th and includes the Lucky Man Race wherein thousands of hopefuls race from the main gate to the main shrine building.

I was here very early on June 10th and preparations were underway for a ceremony at the Okiebisu Shrine.....

This was my first stop on day 3 of my walk along the Kinki Fudo Myo pilgrimage. The previous post was on my last stop of day 2, the Kifune Shrine in Amagasaki.

Oki Islands Horses & Cattle

 

One of the unusual sights encountered on the remote Oki Islands off the north coast of Shimane, are horses and cattle roaming free.

Japan has a livestock industry, with plenty of pork, beef, chicken, etc being raised, however, most of it is indoors, some small scale, some truly industrial.

Several times while driving around Nishinomiya Island we had to rake suddenly because of cattle in the roads.

All these shots were taken in the NW corner of the island in the grassy highlands above the Kuniga Coast.

I believe that Hokkaido is quite different from the rest of Japan and its agriculture is more akin to American style so more livestock can be seen grazing at pasture.

I quite like it and it reminded me a little of the ponies on Dartmoor. There is no doubt in my mind that "free range" livestock is tastier.

The previous post in this series exploring the delightful Oki Islands was the Yurahime "squid" Shrine.

Hizen Torii & Other Shrine Details

 

Day 57 of my walk along the Kyushu pilgrimage was largely along the Nagasaki Kaido from saga City to Takeo Onsen. As usual, I tried to stop in at every shrine I passed in the hope of seeing something or learning something interesting. Usually, I would do an individual post for each shrine and do some research on the shrine history, stories behind the kami enshrined etc, but as these posts were never of much interest to many people from now on I will just post highlights. Noticeable in this first shrine is the Hizen style torii. Torii styles tend to be based on other factors than region, but Hizen is unique in this regard.

Offerings of sake and oranges are common at shrines and temples, with oranges being most popular after the new year. Though this was a shrine, the small altar was with a Buddhist statue, something that was outlawed in early Meiji but which is increasingly found nowadays.

Fukumohachimangu is quite a large shrine on a hilltop in Omachi. It became a Hachiman shrine in the 9th century but the earlier shrine is linked to stories of Yamato Takeru and his fight with the Kumaso tribe, one of the two big "tribes" of Kyushu that resisted Yamato control. A series of torii lead from the main road and then up the hill, but only one was in Hizen style.

What Fukumohachimangu had, that most shrines have, was a large sacred tree. In this case it was marked with a shimenawa rope, but many such trees do not have a shimenawa. One way of spotting a shrine from a distance is to see a grove of unusually large trees.....

Kaido shrine lies on the bank of Yaigome Pond, a large reservoir that feeds the rice paddies of the Saga Plain. The torii still retains an influence of Hizen style. Enshrined here are Toyotamahiko, Toyotamahime, and also others including Sugawara Michizane.

The final four photos all were taken at Inanushi Shrine, very close to Fumyozan Koyaji Temple. According to one source, the Hizen style torii which is dismantled and lying next to the approach road was the first Hizen style torii in Saga on the Nagasaki Kaido coming from Nagasaki.

Horse statues in stone are quite rare. Modern ones in bronze or wooden ones undercover are far more common. It was here that I discovered the unusual komainu statues.

There were several Inari shrines in the grounds, including this small stone one, and also tghis larger one housed in a small wooden hall.

Saga Shrine & Matsubara Shrine

Saga Shrine & Matsubara Shrine

With lines of people waiting for their first shrine visit of the year, hatsumode, 5 full days already into the year, it is an indication of how popular Saga Shrine is with local inhabitants. It is also the main venue for Shinto-style weddings, car-blessings etc.

many miko, shrine maidens, were also in evidence. Mostly students hired for the new year period, the shrine's busiest, and most profitable, time of the year, major festivals may also see the hiring of temporary miko.

Saga Shrine is located just north of the moat of the old castle. The shrine is relatively new, founded in the Meiji period and enshrining the last two daimyo of the former Saga Domain, Nabeshima Naomasa and his sone Naohiro. A lot of the last generation of daimyo got themselves enshrined as gods, especially those daimyos who were pro-imperialist like the daimyos of Choshu, Satsuma, and Saga.

Immediately adjacent to Saga Shrine, and in reality not at all separate, is the older Matsubara Shrine, founded a century earlier, and enshrining the ancestors of the Nabeshima and their earlier generations.

Within Matsubara Shrine are many sub-shrines and other points of interest, but on this trip, it was so crowded and I just literally walked through. A few years ago while walking the Kyushu Fudo  Myo  pilgrimage I stopped in and explored more deeply, so will post much more later.

This was the end of my 56yj day walking the Kyushu pilgrimage, and I estimated that I had already walked more than 1500 kilometers, several hundred more than the whole of the Shikoku Ohenro, and I still had more of Saga, all of Nagasaki, and then back into Fukuoka before I would finish. Tomorrow I would head back home and return to Saga in February to continue on....

Chirikuhachimangu

Chirikuhachimangu

Just a couple of hundred metres from a Hachiman Shrine adjacent to the Nanagi Fudoson Temple was the entrance to a much larger Hachiman shrine, Chirikuhachimangu. The torii, entrance gate, is in Hizen style, Hizen being the name of the former province that made Saga and Nagasaki prefectures. Also visible is the pair of Kadomatsu, the new years' decorations with bamboo centres.

A ceremony was underway when I arrived so I walked around quietly. It was Jan 5th, so not sure what ceremony it was.

The ornamentation on tye roof is now purely decorative. The cross-pieces are called chigi. If the ends are cut vertically, like here, it indicates that the main kami enshrined is male. A horizontal cut indicates female kami. The horizontal "log" pieces are called katsuogi. Both were used in early Japanese architecture to help weigh down the thatched roof.

This pair of komainu was somewhat unusual, with long, almost cylindrical bodies, not unlike others I had seen further south in Kumamoto.

Looking back from the shrine over Nagatoishi, with Kurume across the other side of the river. The shrine is in Saga, but Nagatoishi, which used to be mostly rice-paddies 50 years ago, is part of Fukuoka. The river mostly forms the boundary between the two prefectures, but the actual boundary is far more serpentine with horseshoe bends crossing over to each side of the river so that  sections of the opposite banks belong to the other  prefecture , suggesting that the river has been straightened quite dramatically in recent times.;

There are quite a few large camphor trees and numerous sub- shrines within the grounds. Hachiman shrines are the most common shrines in Japan nowadays but originally it was a north Kyushu cult that later spread to Nara and then Kyoto, then becoming so widespread after being adopted by the samurai. This shrine, however, is said to be one of a half dozen or so major hachiman shrines in north Kyushu that pre-date its national adoption.

I am curious as to the reason for the stance the horse statue is taking.

Guardians of Kitano Tenmangu in Kurume

 

On the north bank of the Chikugo River in Fukuoka, and now a part of Kurume City, is a large Tenmangu Shrine established in the 11th Century. A branch of the original Kitano Tenmangu shrine established in Kyoto, the area around the shrine is now called Kitano.

Tomorrow I  will post photos of the shrine with inf0 about it, but for now a sequence of pics on the gurdian statues there, starting with komainu, of which there were multiple pairs of stone ones lining the approach.

Inside the gatehouse were also some of the older style of komainu carved in wood. Unusually they were painted red

Also inside the gatehouse was a pair of Zuijin, the shinto version of Buddhist Nio guardians. Though some date back to the Edo period, many are post Meiji era and replaced Nio.

Zuijin was the original term for imperial guards, and they are most often shown holding bows and arrows.

Flanking the main hall are a pair of stylized bird statues, one gold, the other silver. Sometimes you find statues of doves at Hachiman shrines as the dove is messenger of this god of war in Japan but I really dont know what these are or what they represent.

Many shrines have a wooden statue of a white horse, Based on a very old tradition of donating a horse to a shrine to pray for rain, this is also the origin of the ema votive plaques.....

Unusual, and I'm not sure of their significace, but there were also this trio of red horses...... more on the shrine tomorrow....

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