Tokushima Illuminations

 

I spent a couple of nights in Tokushima City around Christmas time in 2016 while I was walking the Shikoku Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage, and so was able to catch the year-end illuminations.

Known as the city of water, Tokushima has a lot of rivers flowing though it (138 they claim), and rivers always double the amount of illuminations with their reflections.

Even so, Tokushima that year started a Digital LED Festival, and invited many artists working with LED lights to display their work.

The biggest artist invited was Teamlab, the arts collective known for leading-edge illuminated art environments.

Their biggest piece was titled Luminous River, and involved hundreds of large spheres floating on the surface that changed colours along with a soundtrack.

I did post on the Luminous River installation earlier....

Along one of the riverbanks was a line of digital LED artworks.

Most were inside transparent boxes, obvioulsy to protect them from the weather and the passrs-by..

Theer was also the standard illuminations, on trees, bridges etc

As well as a group of paddleboarding Santa's...

All in all a pleasantly different set of year-end illuminations....

Not sure how long the tradition carried on for, though I did read they were still doing the art display in 2018.

The previous post in this series on my walk along the Shikoku Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage was on the free Awa Puppet Museum in downtown Tokushima.

if you would like to subscribe by email, just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published or made public. I post new content almost every day, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the most recent posts.

Awa Puppet Museum

 

After visiting Myoo-in Temple on the Shikoku Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage I went into Tokushima to check in to my room. With some of the afternoon remaining, I headed to the riverside Awagin Hall

It is primarily an auditorium and concert venue, but on the second floor is a wonderful free museum on Bunraku puppet theatre.

Puppet theatre was very widespread in some parts of Japan, whereas in other areas  Kabuki dominated.

Bunraku originated in Osaka, but Awaji Island also developed its own major tradition.

Tokushima, formerly Awa, was close enough to Awaji Island that its tradition spread to here.

On the outskirts of Tokushima City is a Bunraku theatre that still puts on performances, but it is a little out of the way so not so well visited.

The exhibition in Awagin Hall consists of several parts. Above, and in the 4th photo,  you can see a  recreation of the backstage area of a rural puppet theatre.

Other exhibits focus on the puppets, which tended to be larger than the puppets of the Osaka tradition.

There are many examples of the puppet heads, some said to have been made by Umanose Komazura, the originator of the Awa puppet tradition.

The greatest author of puppet plays is without a doubt Chikamatsu Monzaemon, odten described as Japans' Shakespeare.

One of the greatest Japanese movies of all time, in my opinion, Chikamatsu Monogatari by Kenji Mizoguchi, was based on one of his stories, and Chushingura, the story of the 47 Ronin, was also based on his original.

The previous post in this series was on Myoo-in Temple.

if you would like to subscribe by email, just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published or made public. I post new content almost every day, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the most recent posts.

Myoo-in Temple 9 Shikoku Fudo Myoo Pilgimage

 

Fudo has 36 young boy attendants, and is often depicted paired with two named Kongara and Seitaka.

At the 36 temples of the Shikoku Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage, each temple has one of the 36 usually, like here, as a small statue.

Myoo-in is located a few kilometers up the Kawata River from the Yoshino River, a little over halfway from Miyoshi to Tokushima City.

I can not find a lot of history or background information. 

The main hall is fairly new, replacing one from the last years of the Edo Period.

There is this group of new Six Jizo, and somewhere here is enshrined an older said to be carved by Kobo Daishi himself.

In the Daishi-do there was a small Aizen-Myoo in front of the Daishi statue.

Up the steps was this unusually two-storeyed structure.

It may be a kind of pagoda.

Built in 1574, some sources say it enshrined a Fudo Myoo and a Bishamonten.

Through a narrow slit I am guessing this is a Bishamonten

For me, the most interesting was in the Enma-do...

Great King Enma is the head of the 13 judges of hell who decide where you go after death, specifically which of the numerous "hells

Statues of the other 12 judges flank him here.

In Chinese Buddhism there are only a total of ten judges.

Enma derives from the Hindu deity Yama.

In Japan he is depicted in the dress of a Tang China government official.

I was here on Christmas Eve 2016, day 6 of my walk along the Shikoku Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage.

The previous post was on the nearby Kawada Hachiman Shrine.