Nobeoka to Hyuga City

Sunday, March 24th, 2018, was the 19th day of my walk around Kyushu on the 108 temple Shingon Pilgrimage. The route from Nobeoka down to Hyuga City included only one temple of the pilgrimage, but lots of small shrines to stop in at and explore.

It was a relatively uneventful day with no major discoveries on my part, though I enjoyed the visits to the shrines as for me there is almost always something to see.

On my way down the coast I crossed many rivers and though it was an overcast day and not great for photography light-wise, it was a still day so the water was mirrorlike.

More palm trees appeared so it certainly felt like I was now in Miyazaki. I stopped early in the day as I had reached the hotel I had a room booked in. The view from my room was not particularly great.

Nanzoin Temple part 3

The final post on some of the multitude of statues at Nanzoin temple in Sasaguri, Fukuoka. here is a nice tableau of the shichifukujin, the seven Lucky Gods.

In every nook and cranny there are tiny Jizo statues....

These seem to be a Buddhist Jizo version of the 7 lucky gods.....

yet more Jizo.......

Sakimori were various forms of frontier guardians, and this curious statue is a memorial to police, sdf, coast guard and firefighters....

The 7 Lucky Gods around Shikoku

The Shichifukujin, the 7 lucky gods, are very popular in Japan despite their being mostly "foreign" gods. On my little walk around Shikoku I encountered them at many of the 88 temples, like these small figurines at the mountaintop temple of Tairyuji in Tokushima.

They are often depicted riding a "takarabune", a treasure boat, together like this at Meitokuji in Kochi.

Many temples, especially in Ehime, had fairly new and larger collections of their statues like Ryukoji in Ehime.

The next temple, Butsumokuji, I visited just afew days before New Year and the statues had fresh offerings in front of them in preparation for the large number of visitors expected I would guess.

This small figurine was at Gokurakuji in Tokushima.

Shichifukujin The 7 lucky gods

All of these statues of the 7 lucky gods of Japan are at Taizo-Ji, a temple at the southern end of the Kunisaki peninsular. This first one is Daikoku, usually equated with Okuninushi, though originally a Hindu deity, Mahakala, a war god. In japan he is associated with agriculture, rice farming and the kitchen. He is usually depicted carrying a magic mallet, standing on a pair of rice bales and with a sack of treasure over his soldier.

The reason these statues are silver is that they are covered with little silver papers that visitors purchase from the temple and apply to the statues while making their prayers/requests. On the silver paper are bonji, a japanese version of an ancient sanskrit script.

This is Fukurokuju, god of wisdom and longevity and sometimes credited with the power to revive the dead. He is a manifestation of the southern Pole star and is linked to a myth of a Chinese Taoist sage. He is a later addition to the seven, replacing Kichijoten.

Benzaiten, a Hindu deity called saraswati, is usually depicted holding a Biwa, Japanese lute, and is associated with all that flows,... water, words, music etc. Often equated with the shinto kami Ichikishimahime

Ebisu is often considered to be the only Japanese god of the seven. The god of fishermen, workingmen, and good luck. He is immensely popular and is often depicted paired with Daikoku as a manifestation of the father-son pair Okuninushi and Kotoshironushi. He is usually depicted carrying a fish.

Bishamonten is a god of war and warriors, so obviously popular with samurai. Originally Hindu, he is the leader of the Shitenno, the 4 heavenly kings of Buddhism and protector of the north.

Jurojin, another Taoist god of wisdom and longevity, often confused with Fukurokuju and said to inhabit the same body.

Hotei, known as the Laughing Buddha in the West, is probably based on a real Chinese Zen monk. He is the god of happiness and the patron of bartenders!!