Path of Light at KitanoTenmangu Kurume

 

A long, straight road leads to the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine near Kurume, and is known as the "path of light" as in mid-March and mid-October the sun sets at the end of the road. This is obviously close to the equinoxes.....

The shrine was established in 1054 as a branch of the Kitano Tenmangu in Kyoto, the original shrine deifying the angry ghost of Michizane Sugawara.

A giant Camphor tree in the grounds is said to be over a thousand years old.

Most striking is that the impressive gatehouse is painted red. Yesterday I posted on some of the guardians here.

The area is well known for Kappa and there is s story of a kappa and Michizane. The mummified hand of the kappa is shown to the public once a year.

Tenmangu shrines are very popular with students praying for success with exams, but are also known for calligraphy.

There are often statues of an Ox at Tenmangu shrines as it became a symbol after an ox carrying the corpse of Sugawara Michizane stopped and refused to move further and so that was the spot he was buried, now Dazaifu Tenmangu a little further north in Fukuoka.

Guardians of Kitano Tenmangu in Kurume

 

On the north bank of the Chikugo River in Fukuoka, and now a part of Kurume City, is a large Tenmangu Shrine established in the 11th Century. A branch of the original Kitano Tenmangu shrine established in Kyoto, the area around the shrine is now called Kitano.

Tomorrow I  will post photos of the shrine with inf0 about it, but for now a sequence of pics on the gurdian statues there, starting with komainu, of which there were multiple pairs of stone ones lining the approach.

Inside the gatehouse were also some of the older style of komainu carved in wood. Unusually they were painted red

Also inside the gatehouse was a pair of Zuijin, the shinto version of Buddhist Nio guardians. Though some date back to the Edo period, many are post Meiji era and replaced Nio.

Zuijin was the original term for imperial guards, and they are most often shown holding bows and arrows.

Flanking the main hall are a pair of stylized bird statues, one gold, the other silver. Sometimes you find statues of doves at Hachiman shrines as the dove is messenger of this god of war in Japan but I really dont know what these are or what they represent.

Many shrines have a wooden statue of a white horse, Based on a very old tradition of donating a horse to a shrine to pray for rain, this is also the origin of the ema votive plaques.....

Unusual, and I'm not sure of their significace, but there were also this trio of red horses...... more on the shrine tomorrow....

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Christmas Morning at a Tenmangu Shrine

Xmas

Christmas Day, 2013, was the 53rd day of my walk around Kyushu on the Kyushu Pilgrimage.

I took an early morning train up the Chikugo River valley towards Hita to pick up the pilgrimage from where I had stopped the day before.

My first stop was a small Tenmangu Shrine. I'm not sure exactly which Tenmangu shrine it was as there are dozens of them in the area.

Dazaifu Tenmangu is a little to the north and it is the temple where Sugawara Michizane, deified as Tenjin, was buried, and so the cult spread throughout the region.

This particular shrine had been recently rebuilt and was sporting a fresh coat of vermillion paint.

There were also quite a few pairs of komainu lining the approach.

Best of all was that because of the strong, low, midwinter sun, the "golden hour" was still there several hours after dawn.

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Many Komainu at Mizuta Tenmangu

 

Mizuta Tenmangu is a fairly large, well establishd, and popular shrine  in southern Fukuoka, and so has over the years received donations and support from wealthy benefactors as well as parishioners. Komainu statues are one such recipient of donations, and Mizuta Tenmangu has numerous pairs that have been installed over the centuries.

These first pair are carved into the lintels of the porch, along with baku, the mythical elephant-like creature. Usually, but not always,  one of the pair will have an open mouth, and one a closed mouth. With this pair, it is not clear.

The open mouth corresponds to "Ah" and the closed mouth to "un", the Sanskrit equivalent of the Greek alpha and omega. usually the "ah" is on the right, I presume because the Japanese traditionally wrote and read from right to left.

All these komainu are made out of different kinds of stone. Originally komainu were wooden and placed inside the shrines. Predominantly in the Edo period they came to be placed outside and made of more weather-resistant stone, though you can sometimes find them made of metal or ceramic.

Behind this pair, you can see a bronze statue of an ox.... a symbol of Tenjin, and found at many Tenmangu shrines.

Lichen and erosion take their toll on komainu and other stone statues. One of the pairs here is in the haunches raised pose.

This final pair seem to be more recent as they have little miss, lichen, or erosion. I continue to be fascinated by the diversity of styles of how komainu are represeneted both through history and in different regions. A selection of previous posts featuring komainu can be viwed by clicking this link.

Mizuta Tenmangu

Mizuta Tenmangu

A few miles north of the Geibunkan is the small town of Mizuta and the main shrines is a Tenmangu with this unusual Torii.

It was founded in 1226 as a branch of Dazaifu Tenmangu, the burial place of Sugawara Michizane north of here. Dazaifu was the "capital" of Kyushu. Suguwara Michizane was a high-ranking courtier in Kyoto who was "exiled" to Dazaifu by his rivals at court.

He died shortly afterwards and his enemies began to die off and so it was believed that Michizane was operating as an "angry ghost", a very important component of Japanese beliefs. To appease his spirit he was posthumously promoted and also enshrined as Tenjin in Kitano Tenmangu shrine in Kyoto.

Tenjin is now considered a kind of patron saint of education and students will pray at Tenmangu shrines for success with exams and such.

The current main hall of the shrine was a reconstruction built in the early 17th century. It is said that Mizuta Tenmangu is the second-largest Tenmangu shrine in Kyushu after Dazaifu tenmangu.

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Miyama Tenmangu

 

Miyama is a small rural settlement in the southern part of Fukuoka Prefecture that used to be called Chikugo. I passed through while walking north on the 50th day of my walk along the Kyushu Pilgrimage.

The local shrine, a Tenmangu, was shrouded in mist. The small Zuijinmon, guardian gate, housed a pair of brightly colored wooden komainu.

As well as a pair of Zuijin, the shinto guardians that Lafcadio Hearn suggested were a Shinto response to  Nio guardians.

Set among a grove of old trees, there are also a pair of stone Komainu. I can find no dates for the shrine, but was probably just a local ujigami shrine until Tenjin was later "installed". I know in my own area of Tenjin, and other national kami,  being installed in local shrines in the early twentieth century to save them from being closed.

Unusually the taiko drum was hung outside the building. Most small shrines will have a single taiko, often in very poor condition, still inside the main building.

I've saved what I think is the best photo for last. Within the shrine grounds there was a Buddhist statue still remaining.

Fukura Tenmangu

Fukura is a district of Usuki, and as I walked into town I stopped in at Fukura Tenmangu. Like quite a few shrines it was actually a temple until the Meiji Period when many temples were converted to shrines by the government.

Being a Tenmangu it features a statue of an ox as well as the usual komainu etc. There are several sub shrines within the grounds.

It seems to be a very popular shrine offering a full range of ceremonies and amulets etc as well as a shrine to a red cat. Red Cat was the nickname of a successful local merchant and petitioners at the shrine pray for business success.

I was there at the end of February and the plum blossoms were in bloom. Tebmangu shrines often have plum trees because of poems Sugawara Michizane wrote about them, in the time before plum blossoms were supplanted by cherry blossoms in the Japanese imagination....

Yuzukosho (yuzu pepper) is a signature product from Usuki & Hita