Okyu Shrine Taragi

 

Continuing my walk down the Kuma River I next stopped at Okyu Shrine, a small, local shrine on the north bank of the river. It has a quite impressive main gate  which, like more than a few buildings in this area, is thatched.

Inside the gate are a pair of Buddhist Nio guardians. This would have been fairly common in the days before the government artificially separated Buddhism and Shinto, and though almost never seen in most of Japan is still seen here in Kyushu.

Ther was also a pair of Zuijin, the Shinto equivalent to Nio.

The shrine was founded in 807, and the gate dates from 1416, though it underwent renovation in 1907. There was no info on which kami are enshrined here.

Some Art at Kanaya Tenmangu

Kanaya Tenmangu shrine is located just outside what used to be the gate into Hagi castle and was where the the Daimyo and official travellers would stop and pray for a safe journey, consequently it received many paintings and such as offerings.

The paintings of horses may well be an earlier version of "ema", votive plaques that were paintings of horses as a substitute for giving a real horse. The coiled snake painting is probably connected to Benzaiten.

One of the things I look for when visiting small, local shrines is the artwork.

The final photo is one of the Zuijin at the shrine. A signboard showed picture of the Buddhist Nio guardians that guarded the shrine until the Meiji Period.

Shikoku Pilgrimage Day 10..... a morning of shrines

Friday September 23rd, 2011, the tenth day of my walk along the Shikoku Pilgrimage and I was still in Tokushima.

By 8:30 I had finished visiting Yakuoji, temple number 23 of the pilgrimage and I spent the rest of the morning heading down route 55 towards Mugi.

Along the way I passed numerous shrines some small, some a little grander, and I stopped in to check them out.

I didn't bother taking notes so I don't know their names nor the kami enshrined therein. Almost all the pilgrims I encountered on my walk just walked past these shrines, concentrating on reaching the next pilgrimage temple, but I believe in the old days pilgrims would have done what I was doing, and stop in at every sacred site along the route.

Noso Hachimangu

Noso Hachimangu is the main shrine of Iizuka in Fukuoka. When I visited it was a few days before the new year and so the place was busy with people preparing for the busiest time of the year for most shrines.

The first record of the shrine, formerly known as Noso-Gu, is 1359, though legend has it that Jingu stopped here after returning from the Korean Peninsula.

There are some nice Tengu, Komainu, Zuijin etc.

As befitting a towns major shrine there are numerous subordinate shrines within the grounds, including several Ebisu shrines, a Gionsha, Tenmangu, Daijingu, Shiga, and a Sumiyoshi shrine.

The biggest secondary shrine is a Wakamitsu Inari, which will get its own post...

Hiwasa Hachiman Shrine

In the morning of the tenth day of my walk along the Shikoku Pilgrimage I came into the small fishing port and town of Hiwasa. Right next door to a museum displaying information about the turtles who lay eggs in the area was the local Hachiman Shrine.

It was not a very big shrine, but had the usual collection of big trees, komainu, shimenawa, ema, zuijin, etc, some of which are shown here. However there were 7 very large storage sheds, each of which held a "chosa", a kind of matsuri float often translated as Taiko Yattai. Each one weighed more than ton and held a taiko drum and several drummers. They are carried on  huge frames made of giant bamboo measuring about 6 x 6 meters.

Each chosa is carried by members of each of the seven communities that make up the town, and along with the mikoshi are paraded around the shrine grounds before being carried down to the sea into which they are dipped to ensure good fortune for the fishermen.

The Hiwasa Hachiman Aki Matsuri takes pleace each October.

Yumachihachimangu

Yumachi is the settlement between Tamatsukuri Onsen and Lake Shinji and has a quite substantial Hachimangu.

Unfortunately there was no signboard and nobody around so I couldn't find out the names of the numerous secondary shrines in the grounds.

It was curious that it din't have an Izumo style shimenawa.

One of the older sessha had its own protective roof and walls

Itsukushima-Gu, Togo

Towards the end of my first days walk across and around  Kunisaki  the valley narrowed and the road started to climb towards the middle of the cone shaped peninsula.

Like all the shrines I had visited that day on my walk from Usa Hachimangu, the shrine had a golden Gingko tree in its grounds, though no Nio.

This small shrine was called Itsukushima-Gu, and is therfore a branch of the famous Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima near Hiroshima, enshrining one of the 3 Munakata goddesses connected to travel between Kyushu and the Korean Peninsula.

There was no signboard nor anyone around so I couldnt find any more information, though there was a small Inari shrine and several what I presumed were aragami shrines.

What is noticeable to me is the difference between shrines in different areas of Japan. In some places, like here in Kunisaki, there is a palpable sense of ancient mystery, though I continue to define what exactly that means :)

Sada Shrine

Sada Shrine, located north of Matsue, was once the most important shrine in the Izumo region. Enshrined in the central honden are 5 kami, the main one being Sadano Okami, along with Izanagi and Izanami, and the pair Hayatamano and Kotosakano. Izanagi and Izanami are well known, and in Izumo, Hayatamano and Kotosakano, 2 kami associated with the "divorce" of Izanagi and Izanami are also fairly common. Little is known of the main kami though except he is known as the protector of the Shimane Peninsula. He was born in a nearby sea cave called kaganokukedo and some posts on that can be found here.

The right (north) honden enshrines the Imperial kami: Amaterasu, and her grandson Ninigi. The left honden enshrines Susano, and something called Hisetsu Yonchu, which I think means "hidden four poles", about which I can find no information.

Sada Shrine is one of the many shrines where the mass kami of Japan arrive in November during kamiarizuki, though it is widely reported that they all go to Izumo Taisha.

Sada Shrine is also home to the UNESCO registered Sada Shin Noh. a form of Noh-influenced kagura that is believed to have influenced satokagura nationwide.

When I first explored this area many years ago I found it interesting to klearn that the earliest known yayoi site in Izumo was found in this valley indicating perhaps that this is where the proto-Japanese first settled in the region which would explain Sada shrines importance.

Arashima Hachimangu

Arashima Hachimangu is located right on Route 9. Hachiman is usually a trio of kami, Homuda Wake, the name of Emperor Ojin, is usually the primary, and the other two being taken from his mother, Jingu, his father, Chuai, or his wife, Himegami. Unusually this one lists Homuda Wake, Jingu, and Takeuchi Sukune, who was Jingu's minister.

It is a direct branch of the Usa Hachimangu. Almost two thirds of Hachimangu nationwide are branches of Iwashimizu. Like all the other shrine in this area there was a Zuijinmon which also had a pair of nice wooden komainu.

Again, like all the other shrines in the area there was an altar to Kojin, the most common kami in the region that hardly gets a mention in any sources on Shinto as it is neither national nor imperial. Represented as a rope snake, in my neighboring area the name is different, but it is just as prevalent and important.

There are several outcroppings of smooth, rounded rock in the grounds. The smaller one has a hokora to Sumiyoshi in a small hole carved into it.

The larger one has steps carved into it that leads up to an Inari Shrine.

Hashima Shrine

Hashima ( or Hajima) Shrine is located on a small rounded hill among the rice paddies just outside Yasugi town center, just off Route 9. The hill is called Gongenyama, and until the Meiji Period the shrine was called Daigongen Shrine. Gongen are/were Buddhist manifestations in kami form.

Like all the shrines in this area of eastern Izumo there was a Zuijinmon ans a nice pair of unpainted Zuijin. At the base of the hill was a stone carved with the name of Dainichi Nyorai, the Great Sun Buddha who was the identity of Amaterasu for a thousand years. However the kami now listed for the shrine are Onamuchi, the Yamato name for Okuninushi, and his "sidekick" Sukunahikona. The Gongen for Okuninushi was Yakushi Nyorai.

There were a couple of smaller shrines in the grounds, an Inari, one to Konohanasakuya, the wife of Ninigi most often equated with Mt. Fuji, and an Oyamagi Shrine.

Like all the shrines in this region there was an altar to Kojin, the most common kami of all. Every shrine has at least one Kojin altar, often more.