Sanja Shrine

Sanja Shrine is right next door to Manpukuji and I came into the shrine from a trail that lead from the temple.
Sanja means " Three kami", and the three enshrined here are Izanagi, Hayatamano, and Kotosakano.

Izanagi is well known but the other two are known only in an alternate version of the myth that has Izanagi visiting his deceased wife Izanami in the underworld, Yomi. When he left Yomi Izanagi swore and oath of divorce from Izanami, he then spat. From the spittle was created Hayatamano who is the main kami of the famous shrine with his name in Kumano.

Also appearing at that time was Kotosakano, full name Yomotsu Kotosakanoo, which means " The man of words of separation of Yomi". I have encountered this triad of kami at other shrines in Izumo and Iwami.

Also enshrined here is Oyamakui, a grandson of Susano through Otoshi, and the main kami of Hie Taisha and Sanno Shinto. There is also an Aragami-sha, pictured above.

This area I am walking through is at the heart of Orochi country, and according to local people following the destruction of Orochi by Susano the people danced a celebration at this spot that later became this shrine.

Chiroku Shrine

Chiroku Shrine

In the Fukuoka area there are quite a few Chiroku (or sometimes Jiroku) shrines. This one is in Ijiri to the south of Hakata and downtown Fukuoka.

They all enshrine the same male-female pair of kami, Takehaniyasuhiko, the male, and Haniyasuhime, the female, and were both created by Izanagi at the same time he created Susano, Amaterasu, etc while purifying himself after his journey to the underworld to visit the deceased Izanami.

The pair of kami are known as the kami of soil, and according to the myth they were created from Izanagi's feces. As the content of Japanese toilets have traditionally been used as fertilizer for farming, its not surprising that these two kami are considered by some to be the kami of the toilet.

There was no signboard at the shrine so its history remains a mystery. All the shimenawa were new in preparation for the impending new year.

Ushitora Shrine

The next stop along the Onomichi Temple Walk is Ushitora Shrine, founded in the mid 9th Century and therefore believed to be the oldest shrine in the town.

The shrine is set in a grove of massive camphor trees the oldest of which is more than 900 years old. The ropeway up the mountain now passes over the shrine.

The 4 kami enshrined in the main shrine are Izanagi, Amaterasu, Susano, and Kibitsuhiko.

There are a lot of secondary shrines in the grounds including a large pyramidical rock, but the only one I could be sure of was an Inari Shrine.

Enjo-ji Temple

Enjo-ji is the first of the "extra" temples on the Iwami 33 Kannon Pilgrimage, that is to say it is not one of the 33 but still considered part of the pilgrimage. It has a fine pair of Nio

It is the only Tendai temple within Oda City and was founded sometime in the first half of the tenth century.

The honzon is a 16th century statue of Senju Kannon, the thousand-armed Kannon.

From the temple there are great views of Mount Sanbe the top of which I planned on reaching by the end of the day.

On the hillside behind the temple is a Noshiro Shrine which I am presuming is a branch of the shrine in the village a few kilometers downstream that enshrines Izanagi. A post on that shrine can be found here.

Noshiro Shrine

After leaving Oda the route of the Iwami 33 Kannon Pilgrimage heads along the Sanbe River towards Mount Sanbe. Just below Sanbe Dam is the small settlement of Noshiro with a small shrine.

I know these posts on obscure local shrines are not particularly popular, but a large part of the reason why I started this blog was to document the thousands of shrines I've visited, so..... As of this writing I have only managed to document 124, an index of which can be found here.

Noshiro has an interesting trio of kami enshrined, the main one being Izanagi, the male half of the pair that created the Japanese islands and its kami. Mythologically speaking Izanagi and Izanami are the most important of the kami, but in the seventh Century, and again in the twentieth Century, the government of Japan elevated the Imperial ancestor Amaterasu to the highest position.

The other 2 kami enshrined here are related to Izanagi, Hayatamano and Kotosakano, 2 kami that appear in the myth of Izanagis visit to see his dead wife Izanami in Yomi. At least that is the Izumo version, and as the myth of Yomi is set in Izumo I would tend towards that version rather than the "national" version that has Hayatamano as another name for Izanami. Part of my interest in visiting small local shrines is for the light they shed on the diversity that existed in Japan before the modern, homogenous, centrally imposed, "national" culture was created.

Ube Shrine

Ube Shrine is located a little south of Tottori City and was/is the Ichinomiya, first-ranked shrine, of the former Inaba province. In the Meiji period is was classified as the second rank of government supported shrines.

The main shrine building and a picture of the enshrined kami, Takenouchinosukune, were printed on the 5 yen note in the early twentieth century. He is usually depicted with a full, long beard. (very handsome if I do say so myself :)

Within the grounds is a massha, secondary shrine, Kofu Shrine that enshrines, among others, Takemikazuchi, Yamato takeru, Izanagi, and kukurihime.

The main kami, Takenouchinosukune, was of royal descent and served 5 emperors and is most well known for serving the mythical Empress Jingu on her mythical invasion of the Korean Peninsular. He lived to be almost 300 years old, and a set of rocks in the shrine grounds is supposedly where he left a pair of shoes.

28 Japanese clans claim descent from him, most notably the Soga and the Katsuragi.

Now he is known as a guardian of children and while we were there several ceremonies were held for kids even though it was a few weeks after the "official" shichigosan.

Omiya Shrine, Udo.

Just a couple of kilometers along the coast from Sagiura is another tiny fishing village with a shrine that was both mentioned in the Izumo Fudoki and listed in the Engi Shiki.

The village Omiya Shrine enshrines a male-female pair of kami, Shinatsuhiko and Shinatsuhime.

According to the ancient creation myths, after Izanagi and Izanami created the Japanese islands they were covered in mist, so Izanagi created Shinatsuhiko to blow the mist away, therefore the pair are known as gods of wind. In the village they are known as gods for safe travel by sea.

This whole section of coast is really quite wild and beautiful with just small fishing settlements in the occasional cove. reminds me of Cornwall in many ways. According to the Kunibiki myth this section of the peninsular was created by taking land from Shiragi, the Korean kingdom known as Sila in English

Yomi, The Underworld!

When it comes to where you go after death, the Japanese have had multiple places to believe in. Probably the most common nowadays is the Pure Land of Buddhism, and also the christian notion of heaven has had some influence. Before the introduction of Buddhism there were several places, Ne no Kuni (land of the root), Tokoyo no Kuni, the land of everlasting life that lay across or under the sea, but the classic version is Yomi, the land of the dead.

Yomi is where Izanami went to after giving birth to the kami of fire caused her death. Her partner, Izanagi, was under strict instructions not to follow her, but he did anyway and discovered a place underground filled with rotting corpses. The description of Yomi reads like the inside of a tomb. Anyway, Izanagi was chased by the hideous guardians of Yomi and only managed to escape by blocking the entrance with boulders.

The entrance to Yomi is up in Izumo, not far from Matsue, just off Route 9. One would think that the entrance to hell would be a big deal, but its actually hard to find, marked with a handpainted sign up a small farm road. The farmer who lives next to it doesnt seem at all bothered by it.

A few kilometres away is Kamosu Shrine, and this is where Izanagi stopped and rested after fleeing Yomi. Afterwards he purified himself with water to get rid of the pollution of death, and in the process created Amaterasu and Susano, among others.

Izanagi Shrine, Tenri

Izanagi Shrine is located just across from the Sujin Kofun on Route 169 in Tenri, just a little off of the Yamanobenomichi.

The shrine is mentioned in the Engishiki of the tenth Century, but at that time it was located in Yamada, southeast of its present site. It was moved here in 1641.

Enshrined here along with Izanagi is Sugawara Michizane, commonly referred to as Tenjin.

As often happened in the early years of Meiji, the shrine was renamed, but reverted to its original name after the end of WWII.

There is also an Inari Shrine in the grounds.

Hakusan Shrine, Tenri.

This small wayside shrine is located just of the Yamanobenomichi a little south of Isonokami Shrine in Tenri. I believe it is a Hakusan Shrine, sometimes read as Shirayama Shrine. Shirayama is the older reading. The head Hakusan shrine is up in Ishikawa Prefecture. Nowadays the main kami is said to be Kukurihime, a kami who mediated between Izanagi and his dead wife Izanami, so sometimes eithe of these two are claimed as the main kami.

The shrine may well have been part of a huge temple complex that existed near here before being destroyed in the early years of Meiji when the government dramatically altered the religious landscape of Japan.

Three Lights Shrine

This is not a mosque, but a shrine. The symbol is of the three kami enshrined at Mihashinoyama Shrine on Sangaisan, at 378 metres the highest mountain overlooking Hamada.

The three kami are Amaterasu, represented as the sun, Tsukiyomi, the kami of the moon, and Susano represented as a star,.... the three lights.

There are actually 3 shrines on the mountaintop, lower, middle, and upper. The middle shrine, shown above, contains the main buildings, and is in the style of the meiji era, so I suspect that the attribution of the 3 kami occurred at that time. Prior to that the 3 kami were known as Gongen, buddhist manifestations of Japanese kami.

The most common version of the story of the creation of the 3 kami is from the Kojiki, when Izanagi fled from visiting his dead wife, Izanami, in the underworld, Yomi. While ritually purifying himself in a stream, Amaterasu, Tsukiyomi, and Susano are expelled from Izanagi's eyes and nose.

In the Kojiki version of the myths, thats the last we hear of Tsukiyomi, and there are very few shrines to him in Japan. I've never come across another shrine where all 3 of the kami are represented in the same way as here.

The mountaintop shrine was known as a place to view sunrise, and a place to pray for safety on sea journeys and for fishing.

There are great views looking down over Hamada as well as down the coast and also inland.

Its possible to drive to within a few hundred meters of the shrine, and there is a footpath up the mountain that starts behind the University.