Hinomisaki Shrine

 

Hinomisaki is a grand shrine at the western tip of the Shimane Peninsula, in a small cove under the Hinomisaki Lighthouse, the tallest in East Asia.

When showing visitors around, I often encourage them to visit Hinomisaki Shrine instead of, or at least as well as, Izumo Taisha.

The shrine claims to have been founded in 536BCE, which is as absurd as the claim that Jimmu became emperor more than a hundred years before that. It is said that Susano decided to "settle" here after "creating" Izumo, and his son built a shrine to him nearby.

A shrine to Amaterasu was established on Fumijima, the sacred island offshore that I covered in the last post.

The Amaterasu shrine was moved here in 948. At the same time a Jinguji was established within the shrine so there was a Yakushi Hall, a Sutra Hall, a 3 storey Pagoda and a Tahoto Pagoda, a Daishi Hall, and a bell tower

In Kyoto, the shrine became famous as a centre of Shugendo.

The current buildings, most of which are Important Cultural Properties, were built under order of Tokugawa Iemitsu and were completed in 1644. They are in Gongen Zukuri style.

Both the local Matsudaira Daimyo and the Shogunate supported the shrine with large grants of land and Hinomisaki Shrine was the second largest shrine in the whole San-in region, after Izumo Taisha.

Now here comes the intriguing thing. The main hall, called Sunset Palace, enshrined Susano, and the smaller, Upper Hall enshrined Amaterasu, but in 1868 they switched them. This is not mentioned anywhere in the shrines website nor in the Japanese wikipedia page. Its all written as if Amaterasu was always the main kami.

When I first visited here more than twenty years ago I had recently learned about the chigi, the cross pieces on the roof. If the ends are cut horizontally, then the kami is female, if vertical then male.

Here the Amaterasu hall has a male chigi. I asked a young priest about it and what he said was that in 1868, when modern Shinto was created with Amaterasu at the top, it was decided here that people praying to Susano in the main hall had their backs to the Amaterasu Hall and that this was considered disrespectful, so they swapped. Because the buildings are Important Cultural Properties they could not be altered, so the chigi remained. I strongly suspect that nowadays they would not be so eager to share this history.

As with so many other shrines throughout Japan around 1868, not only did they remove all the Buddhist connections, but changed the kami too.

There are lots of secondary shrines inside and just outside the grounds including an Inari, and a Munakata. There is a line of 19 shrines representing various shrines that were brought into the shrine in the early 20th century during the shrine closures.

Most interesting to me is a Korean Shrine that enshrines Susano and Isotakeru. It is thought this was here before the Hinomisaki shrine was moved here from nearby. It links to the Korean Forge Shrine nearby as well as the Korea-Susano shrines down in Iwami.

The previous post in this series documenting my deep exploration of the Japan Sea Coast was on Fumijima Island.

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Konjiji Temple 12 Shikoku Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage

 

Konjiji, temple number 12 on the Shikoku Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage, is a mountaintop temple with a strong Shugendo past.

It is also the okunoin of Dainichiji, the 13th temple on the famous Shikoku 88 Pilgrimage.

Like so many mountain temples associated with Shugendo, Konjiji is said to have been founded by the legendary En no Gyoja in the 7th Century.

More than a century later, Kobo Daishi visited and practised austerities and had a vision of Kongo Zao Gongen and so carved an image of him and placed it in a cave.

Each of the 36 temples on this Fudo pilgrimage has a statue of one of the 36 young acolytes called Doji. The one here is called Harahara Doji.

Susuharae is an old traditional ritual of sweeping away soot, dust, cobwebs etc from under the eaves of shrines and temples  for the new year using a takesao, a long bamboo with straw or leaf "brush" at the end. A short video of it being done ceremonially at Dazaifu Tenmangu in this old post.

The temple fell into disuse but was revived at the end of the 16th century by Hachisuka Iemasu, the Daimyo of Awa Domain. He took the Zao Gongen statue and enshrined it within the castle town but strange things happened so he made a copy and placed the copy back at Konjiji. Strange things continued to happen so he realized the statue need to be returned which is why there are two statues now.

The temple sits at an elevation of 310 meters, and has superb views down on Tokushima and the Yoshino River. I will post more of the views in the next post in the series.

About 500 meters from the main temple is a waterfall used for ascetic training. I suspect that the ladder I passed on the trail up the mountain was one way to get to the falls.

I believe the masks pictured below were carved by a famous Noh mask carver from Shiga.

The first two masks are Tengu, but the third is a Noh mask representation of Fudo Myoo

The previous post was on the way up the mountain to the temple.

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Taimasan the Hemp Shrine

 

Mount Taima, 599 meters above sea level, is the highest mountain on the coast between Hamada and Misumi in Shimane.

About halfway up the narrow mountain road from the sea to the shrine close to the top of the mountain,  a giant torii straddles the road.

The miuntain was originally named Futagoyama, but the name was changed by imperial decree in 888 following a "divine revelation". I cant find out anuthing about the revelation except that since the start of the 8th century monks had been living on the mountain. In 889 the kami from Oasahiko Shrine in Tokushima was transferred here and the branch shrine established.

Oasahiko Shrine was originally established by the Imbe Clan, sent to Shikoku to find good land for growing hemp. The hemp plant motif is all over the shrine here at Taimasan, but cannot be seen at Oasahiko Shrine.

There is a local legend of the Imbe Clan moving into the area of Mount Taima and driving out the Ono Clan. According to the story they moved down the coast to the mountain where Susa is in Yamaguchi, the next landmark high mountain down the coast. On the slopes of Mount Taima is an area of large boulders. They were thrown here by a giant on the mountain near Susa. According to the legend, an agreement was reached between the Imbe and the Ono and they returned to the area, but the Imbe kept Mount Taima. One source suggests that the Yamato sent the Imbe into Iwami to help contain  Izumo.

The original kami of the shrine were Oasahiko, Sarutahiko, Amahiwashi, and Zao Gongen.

Several temples were established around the shrine and in the mid 10th century another series of kami were enshrined here; Kumano Gongen, Sanno Gongen, Hakusan Gongen, and Hashiryu Gongen. As can be inferred by this list, Taimasan became a major Shugendo site.

In the early 16th century the shrine-temple complex was destroyed  during the war between the Amago and Ouchi clans. It was rebuilt, and a scroll painting dated to the late 16th century depicts it as a very large complex of shrines and temples with the nickname of Koyasan of the West, a nickname it shared with numerous other sites in western Japan.

In 1836, a major landslide destroyed the shrine and temple, and only the shrine was rebuilt in 1844, along with part of the temple.

In 1872, everything was again destroyed, this time by the Hamada Earthquake. Due to the anti-Buddhist movement, only the shrine was rebuilt.

Today, the shrine stands alone in the middle of the forest. The old temple garden has been restored and is well worth a visit. On the top of the mountain among all the antennae is an observation tower with fantasticviews.... I will cover that next

Hemp has a long and glorious history in Japan, though since it was banned by MacArthur in 1948 it has become very demonized and many Japanese have no idea of its history.

It has been cultivated here long before the Yamato immigrated here. Its main use was its fibre used for many products but mainly for clothing.

It continues to be used for some Shinto implements and there are dozens of small, licensed farms that legally produce it for this purpose,including use by the Emperor.

It is also used in a herb and spice mix called shichimi. One of my favorite Japanese patterns found on many fabrics and other products is Asa no Ha, a hexagonal pattern associated with good luck.

Some years ago we went to a hemp festival at a farm in Tottori. This post has details, though unfortunately no photos. The farm has since been closed down for growing the smokable version.

I have been unable to find out anything about hemp production in the area around Mount Taima, but since the region was not so well suited for rice production, I would think there would have been a lot of it.

After the introduction of cotton in the late 19th century, hemp production declined somewhat, but it remained an important crop, especially during the war.

The previous post in this series on Mount Taima was on the restored garden of the former Sonshoji Temple.

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