Kakinomoto Shrine & Tsunozu Otoshi Shrine

 

Kakinomoto Hitomaro is the greatest of the ancient poets and is worshipped as the kami of poetry.

He was a low-ranked bureaucrat from Yamato who was posted here as acting governor around the end of the 7th century. He maried a Tsunozu  girl known now as Yosomi no Otome. Whereas Kakinomoto is considered the most prominent of the poets in the Manyoshu, Yosomi was the female poet with the most entries in that anthology.

There is actually very little known for sure about Kakinomoto. One historian I like  suggests that being sent to Iwami was an exile for being on the wrong side of a succession dispute at court. He suggests that he was poisoned while here and as it was a political murder Kakinomoto was elevated after death to placate his angry ghost.

There used to be a huge, old pine tree here but it was cut down not too long ago for safety reasons. A cross section of the trunk is on display inside one of the shrne buildings. Masuda, down the coast aways, claims to be where Kakinomoto died. There are several of his poems that have been inferred to have been wriyyen about the Gotsu area, including one spot just downriver from my place. Kakinomoto and Yosomi are mascots for Gotsu.

From here it is just a short walk to the main shrine of Tsunozu, yet another Otoshi Shrine.

I have been here quite a few times for their annual matsuri parade. A video and photos of the Miko Mai dance is here. I met the priest soon after moving to Shimane, and am still using the desk he gave me.

In front of the shrine are a couple of small Buddhist altars with colourful statues. They are part of a miniature 88 "temple" pilgrimage around the town and hills.

According to the shrine records it was established in the late 9th century. It moved to its current location in 1711. It is one of the half dozen Otoshi shrines in the region that might be the one listed in the Engi Shiki.

An ancient ritual called Yatate that dates to the time of looking out for signs of Mongol invasion. Samurai would shoot an arrow at a target on a pine tree at the entrance to the shrine. The ritual was discontinued in the Meiji Period.

Sunsiduary shrines in the grounds are Kotohira Shrine, Omoto Shrine, and Itsukushima Shrine.

Like most shrines in the Gotsu area, but not inland in the mountains, there is a Kaguraden. All-night kagura takes place on October 31st and mikoshi parades and miko mai on November 1st. Kids get the day off school.

The previous post was on Taiheiji Temple not far away, just across the river in Ninomiya.

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Utago Miho Shrine

 This small shrine goes overboard with marine-safety gods, has the most strangely looking Fudo Myoo, and proves that angry ghosts can be horses.

The main shrine in the old fishing harbour of Utago is a Miho Shrine on what was until the 1700's a small island named Ebisujima, but which was connected to the mainland by a man-made causeway.

As a branch of the famous Miho Shrine in Mihonoseki, the main kami is Kotoshironushi, now equated with Ebisu. Also enshrined are a whole slew of other kami with connections to maritime safety.

The Sumiyoshi Sanjin are enshrined here, the three kami associated with Sumiyoshi Shrine, and then there are Omononushi and Emperor Sutoku, the two kami of Konpira shrines, and finally Ichikishimahime, one of the three Munakata kami associated with the safety of travel between Japan and Korea, and alone often equated with Benzaiten, a water kami.

Standing at the side of the main shrine building is a very unusual statue of Fudo Myoo. No longer carrying a sword, it is carved out of some kind of eroded black rock. My feeling is a kind of volcanic rock but it is full of holes. The head in particular is most weird.

Behind the shrine in an altar among rocks is a horse made of straw. I had seen similar things before at shrines on the Tottori coast, but this one comes from a fire that badly damaged the village and in the process, killed a horse. Subsequently, fires kept breaking out until they figured out it was the angry ghost of the dead horse causing the fires and so created the straw horse and altar to propitiate it. Angry ghosts are never far away in Japan....

The previous post was on the village of Utago where the shrine is.

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Itsukushima Shrine Koshigahama

 

The Itsukushima Shrine in Koshigahama near Hagi is situated on the banks of Myojin Pond.

The pond is tidal but also contains freshwater, so species of fish and marine life from both ecosytsems can be found in it.

The pond is on the sandbar that connects Mount Kasayama, a small volcano, with the mainland.

The shrine was established by the second Mori Lord of the Hagi Domain, Tsunahiro, in 1686.

It is a branch of the famous Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima in Hiroshima, which had earlier been part of the Mori Domain.

Not sure what fish these are, but sea bream, parrotfish, mullet, rays, and sea bass can all be found in the pond.

The pond was previously known as Benten Pond and the original Benten Shrine is now a sub shrine of the Itsukushima. Bezaiten was considered a manifestation of Itsukushimahime.

Other sun shrines in the grounds include an Inari and a Konpira.

This was the start of day 30 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage.

The previous post was on the last part of my walk on day 29, across the Matsumoto River.

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Art of Hashikuraji Temple

 

Hashikuraji is a mountain temple in the mountains that border Tokushima and Kagawa on Shikoku.

It was the "inner temple" of Konpira-san, once a major pilgrimage destination in its own right, and since Meiji Konpira became a shrine.

While not all temples have komainu guardian statues, Kashikuraji has quite a few. It also has several shinto torii gates. The top photo is the older type of komainu, wooden and kept indoors.

There are also plenty of carvings adorning the buildings at Hashikuraji. In fact when I was there I noticed free worksheets for kids available at the temple that encouraged kids to explore and find all the examples of animals, including mythical ones, at the temple.

Hashikuraji was a major centre for Shugendo and yamabushi and so has a pair of big wooden Tengu masks.

As is fairly typical, there was a pair, one of the long-nosed Tengu, and one of the Karasu Tengu with beak;

The honzon of the temple is a Konpira Daigongen, though it is a secret buddha and the last four generations of head priest have not even seen it.

There are a few statues scattered around the rounds though.

One of the newer ones is a Bokefuji Kannon. prayed to for protection from dementia and Alzeimers, this is a new version of Kannon that is becoming very common. Typically the standing Kannon will have a small, elderly couple at its feet.

There is a large outdoor altar to Fudo Myoo, and in fact this was what I had come here for, while walking the Shikoku Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage.

The previous post was on the temple buildings and the temples history.