Author: John D. (Page 147 of 202)

Koya’s Shinto shrines

March 20, 2013 / John D.

Shinto rite at Niukanshofu Jinja, guardian shrine of Koyasan

The black and white dog messengers that guided Kukai in Koya's founding myth

Mt Koya, or more affectionately Koyasan, is widely known for its temple complex. But not so many people realise how important a part Shinto shrines play there. Indeed, as a World Heritage site there are two temples, two shrines and a connecting pilgrimage route listed by Unesco. Here, it turns out, are two more World Heritage shrines to add to the list I previously compiled.

Jison-in's striking three-storey pagoda

Mt Koya, usually known as Koyasan, is a city complex of 117 temples that stand on a mountain plateau 820 meters above sea level. It contains the headquarters of the Shingon sect of esoteric Buddhism, and the location was intended to facilitate training in nature, removed from the secular world. In the past the complex was many times bigger than now, making it one of the world’s great mountain temples. Even today the scale is astounding. Religious practice has been carried out here for 1200 years, and for visitors it’s a rare chance to experience the essence of Japanese spirituality.

The original temple was founded by Kukai, posthumously named Kobo Daishi (774-835). He was not only a monk, but a father figure of Japanese culture who excelled in calligraphy, sculpture, good works and the practical skills needed by the peasantry. As founder of the Shingon sect, his name is everywhere present at Koya and his statues are the focus of devotion.

Model breasts at Jison-in

At the foot of the mountain is the first of the World Heritage properties, a temple called Jison-in which acted as administrative base for activities further up the mountain. It was a male-only sacred mount, and according to tradition Kukai’s mother was in residence here when she passed away.

Thereafter the temple became the focus of pilgrimage for women, until the mountain proper was opened to them in 1872. It explains features such as the unexpected models of breasts near the entrance, for the temple caters to female concerns such as pregnancy, easy childbirth and protection from breast cancer.

Next to the temple, up a flight of stairs, is Niukanshofu Jinja, set up by Kukai as a guardian shrine for his project. There used to be Buddhist buildings in the precincts but these were removed in Meiji times, leaving a somewhat forlorn air. Amongst the enshrined kami are those of Mt Koya itself.

According to legend, while Kukai was searching for a suitable spot, he came across a hunter whose two dogs, one black and one white, led him to a hidden valley. Auspiciously, the surrounding eight peaks reminded him of a lotus flower, and it turned out the hunter was son of the Koya goddess, who graciously granted him permission to build his monastery. Kukai’s recognition of the kami means that shrines and torii are everywhere evident on the mountain.

One of the stone markers on the Choishimichi pilgrimage route

The Choishimichi pigrimage route, which extends from Jison-in to the giant entrance gate to Koyasan, passes through the Niukanshofu Shrine at its outset and takes about eight hours in all. There are 180 stone markers (the first is outside Jison-in), at each of which pilgrims stop to pray. The route is about twenty kilometers in length, and it passes nearby the other World Heritage shrine, Niutsuhime Jinja (origin unknown, but before ninth century).

The goddess of Koyasan is also deified Niutsuhime Shrine (literally, Princess Niutsu), and the shrine speaks of a former majesty with a beautifully arched bridge over a koi pond, a large two-storey gate (an Important Cultural Property), and a compound housing a row of four impressive sanctuaries in the kasuga-zukuri style of crossed chigi on the roof together with horizontal katsuogi logs (see photo).

Up at the top of Mt Koya, there are wonders wherever you look, and no shortage of torii and guardian shrines. No other sect of Buddhism is so closely bound with Shinto, for both look for inspiration to the divinity of nature. As a result wherever you roam at Koyasan there are sure to be Shinto elements on display. It’s a striking example of how the animistic sense is deeply rooted in the national consciousness.

Entrance torii and Buddhist-style gateway to Niutsuhime Jinja

The graceful arched bridge leading to Niutsuhime Jinja, now needing a lick of paint but suggestive of a fermer glory

The sanctuaries at Niutsuhime Jinja, with crossed chigi on the roof and horizontal katsuogi logs

Torii are everywhere at Koya, even in the wonderful Okunoin cemetery

Shrine-like pathway to Kukai's mausoleum, holy of holies at the Okunoin cemetery.

No visit to Koyasan is complete without a meal of the seasonal, delicious and vegetarian 'shojin ryori' eaten by the monks. Koya tofu is particularly well-known.

Jizo with bib and make-up: one of the reasons everyone loves Okunioin

The ecology of theology

March 17, 2013 / John D.

One of the attractions of Shinto for Westerners – perhaps ‘the’ attraction, indeed – is the sense of a divine creation. We do not need to yearn for Eden: we’re already living in it! Shinto is not much interested in any future world; its interest is in this world where manifestations of the life-force are revered as kami. Cooperating with the kami is the way of harmony; pollution is an evil.

With the deepening environmental crisis worldwide, more and more people are calling on a change in attitude from the complacent materialism of the past. People are searching for new ways of seeing the world, though sometimes the old ways are what we were seeking all along. Now in a posting of the Huffington Post there come signs too that the Christian community is trying to put its house in ecological order. Immanence, not transcendence, is increasingly the name of the game.

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We need to find our way back home

If you imagine God outside and separate from creation, and you have the idea that you are created in God’s image, you will logically and naturally see yourself as outside and against the things around you. And as you claim all mind to yourself, you will see the world around you as mindless and therefore not entitled to moral or ethical consideration.

The environment will seem to be yours to exploit. Your survival unit will be you and your people against the environment of other social units, other races, and the brutes and vegetables.

If this is your estimate of your relation to nature and you have an advanced technology, your likelihood of survival will be that of a snowball in hell. You will die either of the toxic by-products of your own hate or simply of overpopulation and overgrazing. ~Gregory Bateson

The world we live in is an honorable world. To refuse this deepest instinct of our being, to deny honor where honor is due, to withdraw reverence from divine manifestation, is to place ourselves on a head-on collision course with the ultimate forces of the Universe.

This question of honor must be dealt with before any other question. We miss both the intrinsic nature and the magnitude of the issue if we place our response to the present crises of our planet on any other basis. It is not ultimately a political or economic or scientific or psychological issue. It is ultimately a question of honor. Only the sense of the violated honor of Earth and the need to restore this honor can evoke the understanding as well as the energy needed to carry out the renewal of the planet in any effective manner. ~Thomas Berry

Hindu link

March 17, 2013 / John D.

Green Shinto friend Anuradha Gupta has started an excellent blog introducing Hinduism, from which it is clear how much it shares with Shnto. Indeed, as A.J. Dickinson pointed out, there may even have been direct links through the early trading routes, with Indian holy men making their way up the Chinese coast.

In this edited edition of her piece on the Sun God, Surya, Anu stresses the universal importance of the sun, raising again the interesting question of how Japan developed a female deity. Interestingly, the Shinto scholar Mark Teeuwen believes that Amaterasu may well have started life as a male. (For the full piece on Surya, and for a look at the new and recommendable blog on Hinduism, please click here.)

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The Sun enjoys a special place in the Hindu pantheon and is one of the five main deities that are meant to be worshiped daily. It is the only deity that can be seen with the naked eye.

Several hymns from the Rig Veda, invoking the Sun, are chanted as a daily ritual in many hindu households even today. I read this one today….

sarva mangalya maangalye sarva pap pranashanam
Chinta Sok prashamanam ayuvardhanam uttamam

‘The Sun Lord is auspicious and bestows auspiciousness./ He subdues grief and worries, nourishing life.’

I am sure all of us, in places further away from the equator, can identify with the above hymn. We know what a little bit of sun can do to lift our spirits and how much the lack of it can weigh us down. It is a well accepted fact that people living in warmer places tend to be happier. The ancient seers obviously knew what they were talking about. Furthermore ,they understood the impact the sun has not just on us, but the earth as well. They saw him as the mover of the solar system and the prime source of Agni ( fire).

In the earliest poems, the sun is worshipped as Agni itself, the Universal Fire. Later on he is depicted as Surya, the Sun Lord, riding a golden chariot pulled by seven white horses. The Gayatri Mantra, the most important of all mantras, also from the Rig Veda, worships the sun not just as the giver of physical light but also spiritual light. The Rig Veda, the oldest of the vedas is full of songs in praise of not just the sun but the moon, the planets, the wind, thunder and lightning, the ocean,the rivers, trees and rocks.

It is an expression of a people in awe of the world around them and I think it is the forgotten core of Hinduism. The rituals came later when the elements were enshrined as deities. Perhaps the rituals were just an elaborate ways of preserving that sense of awe and reverence.

Worshipping nature is not a primitive or superstitious act. It is a recognition of the wonder of nature, a respect for its forces which cannot be controlled and an understanding that we cannot exist without it .

Sunrise over the Meoto rocks at Ise

Kumano 5): Sailing away

March 15, 2013 / John D.

Model of the vessel in which monks sailed off into the Pacific, never to return

Those who have read The Catalpa Bow will know of the notion that paradise lay on the far side of the sea. For medieval believers, the idea was that Kannon’s island paradise called Mt Furdaraku (or Potala in Sanskrit) lay off to the south across the sea. For some Buddhists it was such a reality that they built small boats to set off for it. They never returned… The purpose of the sacrificial suicide was to help others by delivering their entreaties and petitions.

Opening to the coffin-like room on the ship where monks prepared themselves to die in expectation of awakening in Kannon's Pure Land

From Heian to Edo times it’s estimated that some twenty monks in all sailed away in this manner. The base for their suicidal mission was Furdarakusan Temple, one of Kumano’s World Heritage sites. It stands near the coast and is said to have been founded, like Seiganto-ji, by a monk from India called Ragyō Shōnin.

Shonin means holy man, and Ragyo supposedly came in the fourth century, which is at odds with the historical account that Buddhism arrived inl the sixth century. So maybe he came and people didn’t realise what he’d brought. Or he brought Hiniduism. Or he came after the sixth century. Or perhaps he was just a figment of someone’s imagination!! [see comment below.]

Fudarakusan-ji is representative of the deeply syncretic beliefs of the past, and there is a shrine adjacent to the Tendai temple that was part of the same complex. From the time of Saicho and Kukai, founders of Tendai and Shingon, kami were seen as the spirits of place which protected localities.

There later developed a notion that the kami were Japanese avatars (gongen) of the more universal Buddhas. In this respect it’s interesting that the devout priests of Fudarakusan-ji, deeply convinced of the reality of Kannon, should set off in boats with torii rather than some Buddhist symbol.

I’m reminded here of the Daimonji festival at Kyoto, when for the midsummer Obon festival the spirits of the dead are sent off by fires lit on the surrounding hills. As well as Buddhist symbols, there is a boat and a torii. One of them transports the dead to the other world, the other marks the divide between the two worlds.

It’s often said that Shinto has a taboo on death, though it is characterised by cultivation of the spirit of the dead. Ancestor worship lies at its core. Go to Koyasan and you’ll find torii throughout the magnificent cemetery there. Visit imperial tombs and you’ll often find torii at their entrance. What’s more, there are several shrines built near graves: Sarutahiko, for example, is supposedly buried at Tsubaki Shrine in Mie. There are too special Shinto burial rites.

Religion it is said was prompted by mankind’s fear of death. In the Shinto worldview we join the realm of the kami after death, merging eventually into one great kamihood like individual droplets of water merging into the sea. As we sail away at the end of life, it may be a comforting thought. Perhaps it was too for the monks of Fudarakusan-ji.

With no food supplies, the monks knew their time would soon end

The modest exterior of the World Heritage temple

Two modern-day visitors paying respects to the past

Example of a Shinto burial rite

Kumano 4): Hongu

March 14, 2013 / John D.

Springtime at Hongu as the sunshine caresses the immaculate cypress bark roofs

Water plays a big part in the three big Kumano shrines. Hayatama Taisha sits near the sea. Nachi is by a waterfall. Hongu for most of its life was on an islet at the confluence of streams which merged into the Kumano River. For early humans in the Kii Hanto, water was a lifeline and a vital means of transport. Gratitude for its blessings and respect for its power played a central role in their spirituality.

In 1889, ironically, Hongu Shrine was swept away in a flood. Sensibly enough, it was decided to rebuild on a nearby hill. The old location is now marked by what is claimed to be the biggest torii in Japan.

Pilgrims... but did they arrive by bus?

The approach to Hongu leads up a flight of 158 steps flanked by woods. At the top is an attractive shrine in the characteristic Kumano style with chigi on the roofs. The four honden (kami sanctuaries) are lined up in a row, as can be seen in the picture above.

The main kami is Ketsumimiko, a deity of tree and forest appropriately enough since the area is thickly wooded. In medieval times, the kami was associated with Amida and the Pure Land sect. As with the other Kumano shrines, Hongu was a centre of syncretic beliefs and embraced mountain asceticism (shugendo).

The shrine stands at the nexus of pilgrimage routes running through Kumano. From the 11th to 14th centuries the area was the nation’s prime destination for pilgrimages, drawing people of all faiths to the mighty Shinto-Buddhist complexes. There were three main routes, one of which had four branches running off it. Some were deliberately difficult, leading through mountain passes over 1000 meters high. The path was only a meter wide in places, and such was the volume of traffic that a popular expression arose about the ‘ant-trail to Kumano’.

At the peak of their popularity, everyone from aristocrat to the common man took part, and it’s said one emperor completed the pilgrimage 23 times, accompanied by a retinue of some 1000 people. From Kyoto it took about a month to Hongu, and a whole support system developed with guides, stone markers and resting spots. Still today you can see pilgrims along the trail, though whether they’ve arrived on foot or by bus is not always clear!

Not far away from Hongu is the only hot spring to be registered with a World Heritage site, called Tsuboyu. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say on the subject:

“In Hongū pilgrims often did purification rites in Yunomine Onsen (Yunomine Hotspring). Tsuboyu is a small cabin on the creek that runs through this isolated onsen village. Inside is a small rocky bath that is the only World Heritage hotspring that you can bath in in the world. For 750 yen you can reserve this historic bath for 30 minutes. It was not only used for purification rites but for its legendary healing effects. The Kumano Kodō Dainichi-goe route links Kumano Hongū Taisha with Yunomine. It is 2 km long and is a steep climb, and descends over a small pass.

From Kumano Hongū Taisha most pilgrims went by boat on the Kumano River to Kumano Hayatama Taisha in the coastal town of Shingū. This 40 km section of the Kumano Kodō is also World Heritage and the only river pilgrimage route in the world that is registered as a UNESCO World Heritage. There is also an overland route which links Kumano Hongū Taisha with Kumano Nachi Taisha. Most pilgrims take two days to complete this walk staying in the small town of Koguchi.”

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For more on Hongu Taisha, and on the other Kumano shrines, see p. 246-256 of Cali and Dougill’s Shinto Shrines (Univ of Hawaii Press).

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The world's only World Heritage hot spring open to the public

Japan's biggest torii? It stands on the spot where the Hongu shrine used to, before it got swept away

Priest conducting a ritual for a private individual

Group prayer in front of one of the Honden structures

A little shrine tucked away at the back enshrining amongst others 'yaoyorozu kami' - the whole eight myriad of them!

Fertility rites

March 13, 2013 / John D.

Pack your bags and head for Komaki, outside Nagoya, for March 15 is the ‘big penis’ festival when fertility rites are celebrated in the Honen Matsuri at Tagata Jinja. The festival attracts great attention amongst Westerners, because of the celebration of something considered taboo or unsavory. As the late great Alan Watts put it, no other religion in human history has been as obsessed with sex as Christianity. By contrast, bearing a phallus around on a mikoshi shows acceptance of nature’s way and a desire to cultivate the life-force.

Once Japan was covered in phallic representations, and border markers known as dosojin depicted sexual imagery including copulation. Encouraging fertility in crops was crucial to a nation whose whole tax-paying system was based on rice bushels. With the Meiji Restoration, however, there came a desire to be seen in the eyes of the West as advanced and ‘civilised’. (Confucian moralists had already clamped down on the ‘primitive’ displays.) Accordingly, most of the representations were done away with and rituals cleaned up. Some, however, survive.

For a report on tomorrow’s festival, please click here. There’s also a Wikipedia page here.

Phallus worship at Yaegaki Shrine in Shimane

Kumano 3): Nachi

March 13, 2013 / John D.

The famous waterfall - and the wrong kind of crane ruining the scene. Devastation from a typhoon last year has necessiated large-scale repairs.

Nachi waterfall is the largest in Japan. It’s also revered as a kami. It not only speaks of the blessings of nature, but it radiates negative ions. Nowhere else exudes vitality quite as strongly.

The three-legged crow makes its usual Kumano appearance

In times past the waterfall was worshipped directly, and still today there is a platform near the base of the waterfall where prayers are offered. Now, unfortunately, there are cranes, trucks and large-scale repairs going on after a devastating typhoon last year. All along the Kumano River too are scenes of debris from landslides and fallen boulders.

Nachi Taisha stands on a nearby hillside, though curiously you can only see the waterfall from its neighbour – Seiganto-ji. Actually, it’s not so curious – for hundreds of years these two World Heritage properties were one and the same complex. Still today they have a symbiotic feel, with a mere gateway between them. The route leads from one to the other, and visitors pass automatically from the world of kami into that of the buddha.

Nachi's sacred tree - an opening into another world

Like the other Kumano shrines, Nachi displays its three-legged crow connection, and I was taken into the honden precincts by a priest to see a rock claimed to be its petrified body. According to legend, it flew here after its mission and turned into a rock. It seemed to me that perhaps there was some connection with the shadowy figure who lies behind the symbol – a shamanic seat or altar, for instance. I put my speculation to the priest, but he laughed it off as a foreigner’s amusing fantasy.

The shrine boasts the biggest box for picking fortunes (omikuji) I’ve seen in Japan. It boasts too a sacred tree that is the most striking I’ve ever come across. It was supposedly planted by Taira no Shigemori (1138-1179), son of Kiyomori, and though it’s still flourishing you can walk down some steps, enter into the hollow and come out the other side. Awesome! It’s as if for a few brief moments you plug into the tree spirit.

Although it’s the main feature in the precincts, most people oddly seem to walk straight past it. Yet when I think of Nachi from now on, it will not only be for the waterfall. It will be for the petrified three-legged crow, and for that very special sacred tree.