Iwanaga Hachimangu

 

A little further along the road to Akiyoshidai after visiting the Hirohata Hachiman Shrine, yet another large hachiman shrine appeared.

Iwanaga Hachimangu had a very long approach with numerous torii....

It is claimed to be the oldest shrine in the area, being founded in 715.

The curious thing is they say it was enshrined from Hyuga, now Miyazaki. All the other Hachiman shrines in western Honshu at around that time are enshrined from Usa. Usa was the original Hachiman shrine and as the cult spread to Honshu due to the association of Hachiman with the founding of the Great Buddha at Nara, it gradually became a national cult.

However, before it spread to Honshu, it had spread somewhat around Kyushu. I came across a couple of Hachiman shrines in southern Fukuoka that had been established very early on. However, I had not found one in Miyazaki. The head priestess of Usa Hachiman had led an army earlier to suppress "revolt" in the southern part of Kyushu, so maybe that explains it.

Like many shrines, this one has been relocated several times, although the exact dates are unknown. It changed its name to Iwanaga in 1922, but it is unclear what it was called before.

Like other hachiman shrines in the area, the kami selection is Ojin, Jingu, and the three Munakata princesses.

Within the grounds is a Tenmangu, and an Arajinja enshrining Susanoo.

In the 1980's a small kofun with an unusual stone-lined coffin chamber was excavated nearby. It was relocated the shrine grounds to keep it safe from the expanding limestone mining.

The final photo shows a quite common feature at many shrines..... a naval artillery shell!!...almost certainly dating to just after the Russo-japanese War at the start of the twentieth century.

The previous post was on another nearby hachiman Shrine, Hirohata Hachimangu.

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Hirohata Hachimangu

 

An hour or so after setting out from my hotel on my walk from Ine to Akiyoshidai I came across the first shrine of the day.

Yet another Hachiman Shrine.

This one was said to be a branch of the original Hachiman Shrine, Usa Hachiman, in what is now Oita. The date given is 732.

The shrine has been at its current site since 1660. It had moved several times before.

In 1221, following the Jokyu War, a new samurai lord took over the area. Unusually, he chose to make this Hachiman shrine his tutelary shrine, rather than establish a new one, which was normal.

The kami are Ojin, Jingu, and the three Munakata Princesses. This seems to be the norm for Hachiman shrines in this area.

In 1752 a Tenmangu Shrine was established within the grounds....

The main shrine was rebuilt in 1769, and in 1770 the shrine grounds were expanded and reforested.

The previous post was on the walk from Mine to Akiyoshidai, during which I stopped in at this shrine.

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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.

Haguro Shrine Tamashima

 

Adorning the roof of Haguro Shrine in Tamashima, Okayamama, is a ceramic Karasu Tengu, and it has become the symbol of the shrine and also a mascot for the town.

Tamashima was a cluster of small islands that have now become reclaimed land due to the efforts of the local daimyo Mizutani Katsutaka who started with the area immediately around where the shrine is now and spread out building embankments and reclaiming more land.

The area quickly became a major port on the trading route of the Inland Sea.

Mount Haguro is a sacred mountain in Yamagata in northern Japan with a major shrine called Dewa Shrine.

It is one of three sacred mountains  grouped together as Dewa Sanzan, and is and was a major Shugendo centre, hence the Karasu Tengu.

The shrine in Tamashima became the centre of the land reclamation project and was supported by the growing merchant population.

The current buildings date back to the mid 19th century and have a lot of fine decorations.

Within the grounds are numerous secondary shrines including a Sumiyoshi Shrine, and a Tenmangu Shrine, as well as a Mizutani Shrine, Kumada Shrine, and a Warei Shrine.

The Seven Lucky Gods are also enshrined and very popular.

There is a small pine tree that has had its branches woven together and is therefore known as Musubi no Matsu.

The figures on tye roof are particularly nice with dragons as well as the Karasu Tengu.

Photos 16 and 17 show two other figures which I believe to be Daoist Immortals. One is riding a turtle and the other a crane, both important Daoist symbols and prevalent in Japanese art and culture, especially gardens.

The kami listed as enshrined here are Tamayorihime, Susanoo, Okuninushi, and Kotoshironushi.

A little off the main tourist track, Tamashima is worth a visit, not least for the artwork adorning Haguro Shrine.

I visited at the start of day 9 walking the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage.

The previous post was on the shrine at temple 6 of the pilgrimage that I visited the afternoon previous, Yuga Shrine.