Hatsumode 2019 (Shimogamo Shrine)

Regular readers of Green Shinto will know our proximity to the World Heritage site of Shimogamo Jinja, and that we’re always on the lookout for the new items that are regularly added to the shrine. So it was with great delight that we found a notice this year at the entrance which suggested a new awareness of environmentalism…

Unfortunately, despite asking the miko and a young priest, no one seemed to know what this involved or indeed anything about it. Eventually I was directed to the shrine office where after consultation a senior priest came out and told me that it was nothing to do with the shrine but they had been asked as a favour to display it by the Urasenke tea association. Therefore no one at Shimogamo knew what it was! Ironically, that says a lot about official Shinto and their interest in environmental organisations…  As we have pointed out before, national well-being is much more central to the thinking, so it was not surprising to find a poster exhorting people to fly the Hinomaru flag for the coming inauguration of a new emperor…

For Hatsumode this year the Maidono (Dance Stage) had been covered in paintings of the Chinese Zodiac with verse translated into French (along the bottom of the paintings in the picture below). It seemed very odd…  why decorate a shrine in French? The answer I was given by the friendly priest in the shrine office was that the calligraphy artist Yoshikawa Juichi had been asked to celebrate 160 years of Japanese-French friendship. (Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that the predominant colours are red, white and blue – colours of the French flag.)

For the content Yoshikawa chose the theme of Shimogamo, of which he is a great admirer (though he lives in Fukui). Accordingly he had chosen the theme of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, since Shimogamo has hokora in its inner compound to worship them. To accompany each sign, he had selected a verse by Kamo no Chomei, author of Hojoki (1212), who had been a priest at Shimogamo before dropping out to become a Buddhist recluse.

Another first this year was related to the tourist boom of recent years. With increasing numbers of foreigners, the shrine has put up more and more signs in English, particularly concerning etiquette. The following seems straightforward but look at the triangles at the top – No talking! First time I’ve come across that…

Another new item had to do with an ever-present concern – money! Recently Green Shinto carried a post about e-money. Foreign money too is a concern it seems….

But the biggest revelation this year had to do with rugby. Yes, rugby. What would a Shinto shrine have to do with rugby you may well ask…  Well, it seems the first rugby game in Kansai took place in the shrine grounds, and a stone monument has been put up to commemorate it. Look carefully and you can see the shape of a rugby ball. ‘Place of the first kick.’ says the inscription. The ema for the nearby shrine are also in the rugby ball shape. With the Rugby World Cup taking place in Japan this year, the shrine is apparently planning a celebration of its own and inviting rugby teams to visit.

One of the most appealing aspects of Japan is the sanctification of history, so it’s interesting to see how a relatively recent episode like the introduction of rugby is being incorporated into the national past. In a board explaining the significance of the event, it said the shrine wished to show through the example of rugby how important it was to cultivate traditional ways. Traditional ways? And yet if one accepts that adoption and adaptation characterises the culture as a whole, then the statement  makes sense….

So there we have it. Every time I visit Shimogamo there are new surprises and occasional shocks. This time the shocking news was that 230 trees had been uprooted or damaged by the terrific typhoon that hit Kyoto in the autumn. For three nights there was no electricity and the Shinden building was damaged. The main areas have been cleared up but there are still places where trees block the way.

So that’s the state of things at the start of the Wild Boar year. Greetings for the coming year to one and all from Kyoto and from Shimogamo Shrine!