Izumo Shrine Suo Ninomiya

 

The Ninomiya, second-ranked shrine, of the old Suo Province was the Izumo Shrine in the Tokuji District on the banks of the Saba River north of Hofu.

It is said tat it was established to appease the Izumo tribe as they expanded into the Saba River basin. It is generally accepted that Izumo controlled a large confederacy that reached from northern Kyushu up to the Niigata area.

It is recorded that it was established in 715 and in 738 it was granted imperial permission to be the Ninomiya of the province.

The shrine was well supported by the Ouchi Clan who ruled the area and then later by the Mori who took over from the Ouchi.

The main kami listed are Okuninushi and Kotoshironushi, although I note that until the 16th century the main kami of Izumo Taisha was Susanoo. The current building dates to 1750.

There are a couple of different Hachiman shrines in the grounds and twenty smaller shrines gathered from around the area.

Most interesting to me was the giant Sugi tree..... this would have been the kind of tree Chogen would have been looking for....

It is 43 meters high, with a 12.5 metre circumference at its base, and a diameter of 7.2 meters.

The previous post was on the monk Chogen and his rebuilding of Todaiji with lumber from this area...

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Itoga Inari Shrine. The Oldest Inari Shrine in Japan

 

Itoga, on the south bank of the Arita River in Wakayama was a stopping point on the most travelled of all the Kumano Kodo routes, the Kiiji route from Osaka and the capital, Kyoto.

The Inari shrine in Itoga lays claim to being the oldest Inari shrine in all of Japan.

The head Inari shrine, and by far the most famous, is the Fushimi Inari Shrine near Kyoto.

Founded by the Hata clan in the first years of the 8th century, most people would consider it the first Inari shrine.

The shrine here in Itoga was founded in the mid 7th century.

Inari, him or herself, has a complex history with many influences and identities, but primarily identifies as a rice-growing deity.

However, there are numerous deities connected with rice and grains, and unentangling historic names in Japan is not so much science as opinion.

Whatever the case, I am drawn to histories that question the official narratives...

There are three huge Camphor trees within the shrine, estimated to between 5 and 6 hundred years old.

Emperor Shirakawa is said to have stopped here on one of his Kumano pilgrimages.

There are numerous shrines that have been moved to within the grounds incuding the Itoga Oji.

Some of the kami enshrined in the grounds include 2 to Okuninushi, and shrines to Susano, Izanagi, Izanami, Kotoshironushi, Sugawara Michizane, Ichikishimahime, Ojin, Oyamatsumi, and many others...

Right next to Itoga Shrine is the Kumano Kodo History & Folklore Museum. As well as displays on the Kumano Kodo it also functions as a rest stop for pilgrims....

With free entry, cetainly worth a visit if you are in the area or walking the Kiiji.

The previous post in this series on my walk along the Saigoku Pilgrimage was on my walk over the pass to reach Itoga.

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Disappeared Japan Kirobara Shrine

 

After leaving Kawamoto and passing the Higashi Ohashi Bridge, I headed upstream to the little settlement of Kirobara, and I was excited to revisit a huge sacred tree. I was disappointed to see it had recently been cut down as it had become unsafe. The following pics are from a much earlier visit.

The tree was a Mukunoki, in English, the common name is Scabrous Aphanathe. It is said that in autumn, the leaves can be used as sandpaper. This one was thought to be about 300 years old and had a base circumference of more than 8 meters. The tree was considered to be the community's shrine.

In the first 2 decades of the twentieth century the government began a "shrine consolidation" program that, in esence, closed small local shrines and moved them to a larger shrine in the area. Before the program ended they had closed 100,000 shrines in Japan, about half of all shrines.

The primary reason was to shift people's focus from local, nature-based shrines to the national shrines like Hachiman or Tenmangu, Kasuga, etc. Another reason was that in the old days, Japanese in the countryside.... the vast majority of Japanese.... would take the day off work for matsuris, and in any small area there could be many small shrines each with its own festival day. Not good for the work ethic the government was trying to instill in the population. Western observers in the Meiji Period said that Japan could never industrialize because the population was quite lackadaisical in their work ethic and time keeping.

Yet another reason was that these local shrines were often set in a grove of old, large trees, and once the shrine was closed the trees were able to be cut for lumber. This point was strongly taken up by Japans first "enviromentalist" Minakata Kumagusu.

When the locals here expected their shrine to be destroyed they very quickly installed a small Tenmangu Shrine, pictured above, and their shrine was spared. My own village was not so lucky. The section of forest immediately behind my house used to be the local shrine. It was moved to the next village and since then no-one visits it. The shrine consolidation program is little known but was almost as big a factor in the creation of the modern Japanese religious landscape as the equally destructive separation of the Buddhas and Kami.

The previous post in this series documenting my walk up the Gonokawa River to its source was on the last bridge I passed, the Kawamoto Higashi Ohashi.

Sakakiyama Shrine, The Brush Shrine

 

Sakakiyama Shrine is a large shrine in Kumano, Hiroshima, the brush capital of Japan.

It is said to have been founded in 933 when the spirit of Hachiman was transferred here from Usa Hachimangu.

It was called Omiya Hachiman Shrine, but in 1713 a major fire destroyed the shrine and all its records so little is known of its history before that.

The shrine was rebuilt in 1724 and the current honden dates to that time. It is considered unusually large and is often claimed to be one of the biggest hondens in Japan.

Until 2024 there was a huge Sugi tree in front of the shrine. Said to be about 800 years old.

However, only the stump remains now as it was in danger of falling, so was cut down

The current Haiden (main hall) is also quite large and dates to 1870.

The shrine is most famous nowadays for the Fude Matsuri, the Brush Festival held around the Autumn Equinox.

At this time brushes are hung around the shrine entrance, the women perform a Fude Dance, caligraphers create large works, and old brushes are ceremoniously burned. along with all the other activities normally associated with a matsuri.

The matsuri began in the 1930's when the town was wealthy from the trade of brushes and most of the townsfolk were engaged in the industry. The brush industry is much smaller now, but Kumano is still the Brush Capital of Japan.

There are numerous secondary shrines within the grounds, including a Suwa Shrine and a Sakakidani Shrine.

There is also an Aragami Shrine and an Inari shrine.

The largest secondary shrine in the grounds is a branch of Kumano Hongu. It was established about 800 years ago.

There are quite a lot of intricate carvings on the honden, attributed to the master craftsman Torii Jinbei.

The interior of the Haidan has a lot of large Ema paintings.

The previous post in this series on day 15 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage was on the walk up the valley to Kumano.