Recently I paid a visit to Kifune Jinja to see the autumn colours on the approach along the Eiden line. This ancient shrine just to the north of Kyoto has been featured on Green Shinto previously here, and I was surprised to find several innovations since my last visit. The shrine has origins in the prehistoric past, when legend says an aristocratic expedition came in search of the source of a river. The innovations made me think I may have been looking too into a futuristic Shinto as well as the distant past.
But first of all, is it Kifune or Kibune Jinja? Shinto Shrines by Cali and Dougill suggests that while the shrine is correctly called Kifune, the village in which it stands is known as Kibune. You say Kibune, I say Kifune, either way it is a shrine well worth visiting and an ever delightful outing for those of who live in Kyoto.
Stairway to heaven – or at least to the kami
With the Covid crisis abating, there is the rare chance these days of using the temizuya for the customary ablutions.An unusual seasonal touch for the votive prayer boards (ema) Ema derive from the practice of donating horses to shrines, black when wishing for rain and white for cessation.Something I hadn’t seen at the shrine before. A smartphone audio guide, and what’s more in English too. Instructions in English too of how to use the fortune slips (this being a water deity, the slips of paper are only readable when placed on water).
Even in front of the Worship Hall notices are placed to advertise the audio guide.
The traditional way is still best.
With the kami watching, there is no problem leaving money lying around
I paid my money and got a fortune slip
Great news! I will have good luck in all aspects of life for the foreseeable future.This was great news too – the shrine is actively collecting funds for charity work with water projects in Sudan.And so back home along the maple-lined Eiden railway line after a visit that suggested Shinto may be turning toward a more open, international, high tech and charitable future.
The following article appeared in Gaijinpot and puts in coherent form the legends and traditions that one sometimes hears about when visiting shrines. The original written by Matthew Coslett appeared on Oct 29, 2021 in Gaijinpot here.
The Convenience of Casting Curses and Charms in Japan
From its ancient origins to its modern face, Japan has a world of hexes, malevolent magic and spells waiting to be discovered… Join us as we go on a tour of the accursed side of Japan.
1. A curse for cutting ties
One of the most common and cheapest curses are shrine curses, which are usually performed at enkiri (separation, severing of relations) shrines, such as Kyoto’s Fushimi Inari Taisha, Ashikaga’s Kadota Inari, and Tokyo’s Enkiri Enoki. These shrines are used to call on the enshrined deities to use their power to help the worshiper cut ties with (mostly) unpleasant people. If you’ve ever thought that you could stop bad habits, such as alcohol, cigarettes, drugs or gambling, if a certain someone stopped coming around, this curse is for you.
2. A curse that lasts generations
“Onryou” is a curse that can last generations.
Of course, simply cutting a tie with someone is not such a strong
curse. For some people, this simply isn’t enough. Instead, they may wish
to hold a grudge even after death. In Japan, many people still believe in onryou, or malevolent spirits called back from the grave to continue a grudge, not just against a person but also their ancestors.
Onryou attracted attention in 2007 when Shigenaga Tomioka used the
word to coerce the people in charge of shrines in Japan to remove his
sister from her role as head priestess, and appoint his son instead. In
Shigenaga’s case, he threatened the descendants of the people with a
kind of curse called a tatari, which guarantees generations of misfortune and woe.
Unfortunately, Shigenaga turned out to be just as terrifying in the
flesh as was unable to wait for the next world and was arrested for
killing his sister with a samurai sword.
3. Japanese dolls for jilted lovers
“Wara ningyou” dolls are used by spurned partners on their ex lovers.
Imagine turning up to your house and finding an upside down doll of you nailed to your door. Known as wara ningyou,
these dolls are an intimidation curse. The doll is often left where
someone can see it like a particularly unsubtle version of The Blair Witch Project or that horse’s head scene in The Godfather.
Despite what most people believe, these effigies are not always
negative as they can be used to trick murderous spirits into taking the
doll instead of the real person. However, this can be just as creepy.
Many campfire stories tell of people waking up to find their wara
ningyou gone, presumably taken by soon-to-be-disappointed evil spirits.
Of course, this ability of wara ningyou to stand in for someone can
also be used negatively. To make a cursed doll, the aggrieved person
writes down their victim’s name or takes a bodily piece of them, usually
hair or nail clippings, and puts it inside the doll. The idea is to
manifest that person within the doll and then when a nail is put through
it, bad things are sure to happen.
4. The infamous ‘hour of the ox’
The
early hours of the morning—”the hour of the ox”—are the most common
times for hexers to nail a cursed doll lest they be spotted in the act
and become cursed themselves!
One of the most infamous times to nail up a doll is during “the hour
of the ox,” usually around 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. This curse is known as the
“hour of the ox visitation” and is—at least historically—a popular curse
for women who are enraged at their lover’s misbehavior. Contemporarily,
though, guys have made use of them but mostly in parody, such as Spa! magazine’s report of this guy who cursed the coronavirus (Japanese).
The jilted partner visits the shrine in the early morning, ideally wearing candles on their head, and nails a wara ningyou to a tree. The very act is such an affront to the resident spirits that they take the most horrific vengeance against the hapless former lover—quite literally bringing the wrath of the gods onto them.
5. Computer curses
Nowadays, curses are more easily and conveniently available online.
In the modern world, of course, maledictions haven’t died out,
instead, they’ve simply become more easily and conveniently available.
Going to all the effort to create a cursed object or visit an area takes
more time than most people are willing to expend, so now Japanese online services can take care of the hex—for a nominal fee, of course.
One service that draws a lot of attention is 日本呪術研究呪鬼会 (Nihon Jujutsu Kenkyu Jukikai),
or the Japanese Magic Research Curse Association, in Osaka, which will
take care of casting spells on your behalf for sins such as (according
to their website): “adultery, returning to one’s spouse following a
fling, stealing from someone and cheating.” The company offers various
prices from a ¥20,000 basic service all the way up to a ¥300,000
complete package, presumably guaranteed to reduce the target to a
quivering wreck.
Fighting the curses
What should you do if you do find yourself on the receiving end of some particularly malevolent voodoo? Well, much like the Jujutsu Kaisen manga, there are real-life masters who exist to fight curses. Temples offer services where a priest will come to your house and cleanse it of evil spirits or sell you a charm, talisman or amulet to ward off the evil eye.
So, unless you want to become a victim of a magical jinx make sure to
be good to all the people in your life. If you can’t manage that, at
least make sure that you keep an eye on where your nail clippings have
disappeared to and what your partner is doing between the hours of 1
a.m. and 3 a.m.
We’ve seen a lot of unusual train stations in Japan over
the years. Over in Gunma, there’s a station where persimmons hang above
the platform, and over in Nagano, there’s the country’s only platform
vineyard.
Now, we’ve found another unusual train station, this time
in Yamaguchi Prefecture, where there are bright red torii gates standing
above the tracks.
The mysterious sight first came to everyone’s attention in March last year, when Twitter user @Alpino305 snapped a couple of photos of the gates at the station and shared them online.
According to @Alpino305, the gates, located at Nagatoshi Station,
were set up by West Japan Railway Company’s Nagato Railway Department on
14 March 2020.
There are 20 gates on the tracks here, set up when the Nagato/Hagi
Liner starting operating between Nagato City and Higashi-Hagi Station on
the Sanin Main Line. The torii are placed 1.5 meters apart and increase
in height by three-centimeter increments in order to create a 3-D
effect in a short space.
If you’re wondering how the gates are able to stay in place on what
looks to be a working line beside the platform, don’t worry — the track
actually lies alongside platform O, which is not currently in operation.
Instead of abolishing the track, the company decided to put it to good
use by creating a site of interest for visitors, taking its inspiration
from nearby Motonosumi Shrine, one of the area’s most famous tourist
sites
▼ Motonosumi Shrine is well-known for its series of stunning
vermillion torii gates by the sea. The shrine is a 26-30 minute drive
from Nagatoshi Station.
While regular-sized trains are unable to pass through the gates at
Nagatoshi Station, it’s just the right size for small track-inspection
trolleys to pass through, which would make a fun ride for children if
they were ever looking to create an activity to draw visitors at events.
For now, the torii gates at the station have an extra aura of mystery
surrounding them, given that the station is largely free of commuters
due to travel restrictions brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.
The reverence for nature undoubtedly underlies the appeal of Shinto, though it is a mistake to think there is nothing more to the religion. Nonetheless that is the part which is often assumed by some outside Japan to comprise all there is. In the following powerful piece by Maria Popova one can see why the desire for Shinto to be simply a nature religion is so strong, for there is a deep need in humans to connect with our environment.
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The great naturalist John Muir observed long ago, “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe”; a return to what is noblest, which means most natural, in us. There is something deeply humanizing in listening to the rustle of a newly leaved tree, in watching a bumblebee romance a blossom, in kneeling onto the carpet of soil to make a hole for a sapling, gently moving a startled earthworm or two out of the way.
Walt Whitman knew this when he weighed what makes life worth living as he convalesced from a paralytic stroke: “After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on — have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear — what remains? Nature remains; to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, the changes of seasons — the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night.”
Those unmatched rewards, both psychological and physiological, are what beloved neurologist and author Oliver Sacks (1933–2015) explores in a lovely short essay titled ‘Why We Need Gardens.’ He writes:
As a writer, I find gardens essential to the creative process; as a physician, I take my patients to gardens whenever possible. All of us have had the experience of wandering through a lush garden or a timeless desert, walking by a river or an ocean, or climbing a mountain and finding ourselves simultaneously calmed and reinvigorated, engaged in mind, refreshed in body and spirit. The importance of these physiological states on individual and community health is fundamental and wide-ranging. In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical “therapy” to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.
Having lived and worked in New York City for half a century — a city “sometimes made bearable… only by its gardens” — Sacks recounts witnessing nature’s tonic effects on his neurologically impaired patients: A man with Tourette’s syndrome, afflicted by severe verbal and gestural tics in the urban environment, grows completely symptom-free while hiking in the desert; an elderly woman with Parkinson’s disease, who often finds herself frozen elsewhere, can not only easily initiate movement in the garden but takes to climbing up and down the rocks unaided; several people with advanced dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, who can’t recall how to perform basic operations of civilization like tying their shoes, suddenly know exactly what to do when handed seedlings and placed before a flower bed. Sacks reflects:
I cannot say exactly how nature exerts its calming and organizing effects on our brains, but I have seen in my patients the restorative and healing powers of nature and gardens, even for those who are deeply disabled neurologically. In many cases, gardens and nature are more powerful than any medication.
More than half a century after the great marine biologist and environmental pioneer Rachel Carson asserted that “there is in us a deeply seated response to the natural universe, which is part of our humanity,” Sacks adds:
Clearly, nature calls to something very deep in us. Biophilia, the love of nature and living things, is an essential part of the human condition. Hortophilia, the desire to interact with, manage, and tend nature, is also deeply instilled in us. The role that nature plays in health and healing becomes even more critical for people working long days in windowless offices, for those living in city neighborhoods without access to green spaces, for children in city schools, or for those in institutional settings such as nursing homes. The effects of nature’s qualities on health are not only spiritual and emotional but physical and neurological. I have no doubt that they reflect deep changes in the brain’s physiology, and perhaps even its structure.
This is a continuation of the interview with Alena Yushu Eckelmann. (For Part One click here.)
4) What does a typical spiritual tour consist
of? Where could readers find out more, such as the price of tours and the type
of accommodation, etc?
There
is no typical spiritual tour. All pilgrimages and retreats are tailor-made and
specific to the person or group of people I am guiding. There are common
elements though such as mindful walking in nature, water and fire purification,
prayers and chanting, meditation, a focus on the five elements and the
stimulation of the five senses.
There
should to be a strong interest in Japanese spirituality and Shugendo and the
willingness to engage in practices and to follow instructions as a
prerequisite. As I am working with my teachers and their temples, a
relationship based on trust and mutual agreements must be honored at all times.
I am planning, coordinating and guiding each tour and hence the number of tours
depends on my, and my teachers’ capacity.
Depending
on the number of days, the number of people, the accommodations and the
content, the price varies. I work with the local communities and temples on Koyasan,
Yoshinoyama and Kumano and use accommodations there. It can be Shukubo, guesthouses,
minshuku or ryokan. The aim is to provide healthy meal options with ingredients
ideally locally sourced, such as Shojin Ryori, Medicinal Cooking, vegetarian
cooking, hand-made soba, or similar.
By working with other locals, many of those have become my friends over the years, I try to contribute to the revitalization of the Japanese countryside and to foster a sustainable way of engagement between locals and visitors. My ideal is that guests do not just pass through but stay longer and engage more.
View of Oyunohara at Hongu Shrine
Alena leading a women’s pilgrimage
The Kii Peninsula featuring the three great shrines of Shingu, Hongu and Nachi (and also yataragarasu, the three-footed crow)
5) You also offer forest bathing. Many have
heard about this but they not fully understand it. So how would you explain it?
What is involved in the forest bathing you offer.
“Forest bathing” wants to bring us out of the
head and into the body. Our senses are the interface between the
outside world and our inside world. They let us experience our surroundings and
connect with what is around us. We take them for granted but don’t really take
advantage of this great gift anymore. When do we really see, hear, smell, taste and
feel things around us, much less nature where we spend so little time these
days. Many of us live in their heads and through their mobile devices. We think
about the world rather than actually sense it with our body. The world is
outside there, separate from us, rather than us being a part of this
“inter-connected web of beings”.
Japan is the birthplace of Shinrin-yoku, which
translates as “forest bathing”. It stands for a full immersion in a forest or
in another natural environment and engagement of all senses, fully dressed of
course and ideally in-person. Imagine that you bath in the atmosphere of the
forest like you would bath in sunlight. You soak it all up with your senses and
let the sounds, sights, scents, tastes, colors and textures of the forest do
its beneficial work to your nervous system.
To be able to do that you need switch off your
smartphone or better don’t bring it at all, then to slow down or even stand
still, and become silent and observant of your surroundings as well as your
feelings. This is something that we are not accustomed to doing in nowadays
fast-paced, overstimulating, noisy and virtual lifestyles.
Smell the faint sent of the shrubs, trees and flowers next to the trail.
Listen to the murmur of the little stream that runs through the forest.
Feel the touch of a breeze of wind gently blowing through the valley on your skin.
See the shades of green around you and the different shapes of trees and leaves.
What are you noticing?
Can you imagine sitting for 15 minutes under a
tree doing nothing but focusing with all your senses on your surroundings. What
are you noticing? Can you imagine to connect with a more-than-human being in
the forest and have a conversation? What are you noticing?
The phrase “Forest Bathing” was coined in the
1980s in Japan. Its underlying idea is that spending time in nature benefits
our health and wellbeing. Over the next 20 years the Japanese researched and scientifically
tested this concept. Later the phrase was changed from Shinrin-yoku to Shinrin
Therapy, which is now a recognized health management system in Japan.
The Forest Therapy Society of Japan describes
Forest Therapy as “a research-based healing practice through immersion in
forests with the aim of promoting mental and physical health and improving
disease prevention while at the same time being able to enjoy and appreciate
the forest”.
When Shinrin Therapy hit foreign shores (North
America, Europe, Australia, amongst others) over the last 10 years more elements
were incorporated and new methods and concepts were created that reflect the
history of the land and its native people.
The Japanese way of Forest Therapy and the Western way differ a bit. While the former is more a structured guide-lead walk with elements of nature education, the latter is an invitational and participant-centered self-exploration with elements of council, or sharing circles. I have trained and I am licensed in both ways: first with the Forest Therapy Society of Japan and then with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy (ANFT) based in the US.
Spiritual retreat with college students
Forest therapy includes mindful relaxation
6) Finally a general
question about the spiritual mix of Shinto, Buddhism and Shugendo. Do each
offer something different, or can they simply not be separated in your opinion?
Shugendo
is typically described as the “way of training and testing to receive special
powers”. This is typically done in the mountains and forests of Japan and over
time certain places have become the training grounds of Shugenja, the followers
of Shugendo. The founder of Shugendo is said to be En-no-gyoja who lived in the
7th century. Gyoja means a person who is doing gyo,
or ascetic activities in the mountains and forests. He is known to have been an
herbalist and to have achieved super-natural powers through his training. He
must have been in close communion with the spirits of the land and with the
invisible realms of the kami-sama, the Japanese deities of Old Shinto.
He lived at a time when Buddhism had just
arrived in Japan. The imported deities and believes merged with the local deities
and believes and created a syncretism referred to as Shinbutsu Shugo. I think
of it as two sides of the same coin. Each side is different but they cannot be
separated. Academics called this merger Honji Suijaku (original ground and
manifested traces) whereby Indian and Buddhist deities (Honji) appear in Japan
as local kami (Suijaku), a theory that was accepted until the Meiji
Restauration when Buddhism and Shintoism was forcefully split.
I believe that this syncretism is still the under-current of Japanese spirituality now and it is the base of Shugendo, which developed over centuries, merging both strands of Shintoism and Buddhism, as well as other influences such as folk beliefs and Taoism, into a spiritual mix with its own practices and rituals, and with its own identity as a self-conscious spiritual tradition.
Syncretism is evident at Mt KoyaPilgrim’s hat and staff for walking the Kumano Kodo
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To read some published articles about Alena, please click here for a piece in Japan Tour, or for Kansai Scene here, or for Buddhist Door here.
1) You are a guide in Wakayama Prefecture which
contains the UNESCO World Heritage trails of Kumano Kodo. How long have you
been there, and how did it come about?
I
came to Japan in 2005 and joined the Executive Training Program (ETP) Japan in
Tokyo. All was set for a corporate career and life in Japan’s capital. I had
lived in London for 9 years before and worked as a research manager at a
company near Oxford Street, so coming to Tokyo was a new challenge and a step
up. Deep down, however, I craved for nature and living in the countryside. I
grew up in a small village and spent a lot of time outside in the woods and
fields during my childhood.
While
living in Tokyo, I visited Kumano several times and walked the Kumano Kodo
trails. I fell in love with the area and wanted to live there. This is also
when I came across Shugendo, a spiritual tradition of mountain asceticism. I
started training with a teacher who came to Tokyo once a month. At some point I
just wished I could live near his temple and commit to serious training.
Quitting
Tokyo is not easy but then came March 11 2011 with the Triple Disaster (Earthquake,
Tsunami, Nuclear Meltdown) in Tohoku. This gave me an ‘excuse’ to leave the
metropolis and move to a remote region, basically going from one extreme to
another. My Japanese partner and I just packed up and on July 1 2011 we drove
down with no place to live and no work lined up.
In
2013 I had a chance to participate in the first Interpreter-Guide Training of
Wakayama Prefecture and became a licensed guide for the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage
trails and for Koyasan, the Shingon Buddhist monastery in the north of the
peninsula. In 2020 I also passed the Koyasan guide license examination at
Kongobuji, the head temple of all Shingon Buddhist temples.
Having
these licenses opened doors for work in an area where there is little
employment, however, I did the training also for myself to learn more about the
pilgrimage traditions on the Kii Peninsula, and about Saint Kobo Daishi and
Shingon Buddhism, both of which I had a strong interest in by then. I started
guiding “regular” tours and took foreigners around Koyasan and around Kumano
and walked the pilgrimage trails with them as part of hiking tours.
This is how I became a guide. I worked full-time as a tour guide for a tour operator from 2013 to 2018, which often took me to other parts of Japan and away from Kumano again. I decided then to go freelance and take the next step: to set up on my own. This became the Kii Monogatari – the story of the Kii Peninsula and my story living here. I cannot separate one from the other. As such, the Kii Monogatari is not a “product” like a tour but it is an evolving journey in which I am as much a traveler as are people who visit here. This year will be my 10th anniversary on this beautiful peninsula to which I am totally committed now.
Alena leading a pilgrimage of foreign visitors
Alena leading a walking tour with WWOT
2) How did your life before coming to Kumano
inform your current activities?
There
is no short answer to this question. My interest in nature and spirituality
come from my upbringing in a small village in East Germany. My family is
Protestant Christian. We were practicing Christians in a socialist state before
The Wall came down in autumn 1989. After this life-changing event it took me
some time to deal with something that resembled a “culture shock” and my next
mission was to learn English, get a degree and climb the career ladder. During
these years I focused on study and work. I had discovered the esoteric section
in the bookstores and eagerly read one book after another.
This went on until I got to Tokyo and went through Japanese language and business training on the ETP program. It was a high-level training aimed at young managers in European businesses dealing with Japanese clients. I felt privileged to be on this program and at the same time I could not shake off the feeling that there was something lacking, something that did not quite fit.
After the end of ETP I took the radical decision to explore the feeling and signed up for intensive aikido training and for taiko drumming, and I started jogging through Tokyo. A whole new world opened up. All three activities were physically strenuous more than spiritual. I wanted to explore where they would take me. First, I committed myself to running the first Tokyo Marathon. I was no runner and had just started jogging but I pushed myself and crossed the finishing line in February 2007. Then I signed up for the Senshusei training in Yoshinkan Aikido, an 11 month aikido boot camp. It took me from scratch to the Black Belt in 2008. In the same year I signed up for the Monkansei training at Oedo Sukeroku Taiko and I trained with a group of people until I left Tokyo.
Alena in her taiko outfit
These activities taught me about “mind over matter”, but also that a healthy body hosts a healthy mind. They taught me about following a traditional “way” as a lifestyle, being patient, diligent and determined, about the importance of the master-deshi relationship and the value of my training group and training partners. There were so many traditional and cultural things that I learned about Japan that the corporate training had not taught me.
These were all experiences that would form the base for my Shugendo training, which started for real after my move to Kumano.
Shakkyo (copying a sutra)
3) You offer spiritual tours, which draw on
your own experiences and practice in Shugendo. Could you tell us about your
spiritual training?
Soon after moving to Kumano I entered a 21 day training period at Sangakurin, my Kumano teacher’s Shugendo temple. The training was Kaihogyo, an ascetic practice that consists of “circling the mountains”, playing the Hora (conch shell) and prayers at certain places in the mountains. The 10km course was the same every day for 21 days. I memorized the prayers in Japanese during this time, including the Hannya Shingyo (Heart Sutra) and mantras dedicated to En-no-gyoja, the Founder of Shugendo, Fudo Myoo and Zao Gongen, central deities in the Shugendo tradition.
Since then I have walked this Kaihogyo course every year in December for one week. This training is my winter shugyo (ascetic exercise) and it is dedicated to Shakka Nyorai’s Nehan. My summer shugyo is walking the Okugake, the Shugendo training trail that connects Kumano with Mount Yoshino. This is a 7-day walk across a mountain range that consists of countless peaks at an altitude of 1,000 to 2,000 meters. Along the trail are 75 nakibi, places for prayer.
Regular training has been gongyo, a formalized service of veneration and worship that is usually done twice a day. It involved memorizing many more mantras for specific deities but I love chanting and devotional prayer. There are training periods of 3, 5 or 7 days that I commit to danjiki (fasting) and meditation. There are periods of training that involve misogi and takigyo, purification in water or under a waterfall. Difficult training includes 3,000 prostrations to the Buddhas in 3 days and chanting the Lotus Sutra, all 28 chapters.
Doing misogi (cold water austerity)
In May 2016 I received Tokudo at Sakuramotobou Temple on Mount Yoshino. My dharma name is Yushu. Since then I have received transmissions from my teachers in Shugendo rituals. Training is ongoing and transmissions take place when my teachers consider me ready. I try to attend the services at my teachers’ temples whenever possible and there attend gongyo services, monthly goma (fire ceremony) prayers and festivals throughout the year.
In
addition to the rituals, there are many more activities that are maybe not
spectacular but they are part of training, such as cleaning the temple halls
and temple compounds, weeding, wood-cutting, preparing for ceremonies and
helping at festivals. Some are seasonal and related to the teachers’ temple
activities, such as planting and harvesting rice, or supporting the mountain
entry of a group of 30 men by preparing their futons and meals.
In recent years there has been increasing interest in Shugendo, and there have been more and more requests to me to help coordinate and guide pilgrimages, kaihogyo walks or weekend retreats with a Shugendo theme. I understand that this is also part of my training to become a Sendatsu, a guide and leader of pilgrimages.
My teachers have already given me the opportunity to help guide various people, including groups of women, groups of teenagers, media representatives, researchers and foreigners with a strong interest in Shugendo. I have also been asked to plan, coordinate and guide “spiritual tours” for a number of groups from Taiwan, the USA and Australia. This is how Kii Monogatari has gradually emerged over the last few years.
Regular readers of this blog will know that we have been keeping an eye on the annual additions to our neighbouring World Heritage shrine of Shimogamo Jinja, here in Kyoto. In recent years this has seen the destruction of considerable portions of the sacred grove, Tadasu no mori. I’m not sure if Unesco is aware of this.
Yesterday while crossing the shrine precincts I noticed something that I had not been aware of before – a glowing bilingual electronic panel, ostensibly to dispense information while at the same time displaying advertisements for local businesses. The latter took up three-quarters of the panel, the former was given only a quarter.
One understands the need to raise money, but commercialism on an intrusive lit-up panel seems undignified for an ancient site. One wonders what will come next. Subshrines advertising Pocari Sweat? Ema with the logo of Nintendo? Priests with Purple Sanga Football Club stamped on their robes?
On the lefthand side of the panel, information about the shrine is at the top, advertisement for a nearby highclass restaurant at the bottom
The shrine is currently directing visitors to visit its new rugby shrine. There is increasing signage in English. There are new offices displaying stained glass (provided by a donor, we understand). Trees being planted bear the names of companies who sponsored them. Step by step the shrine is being remodelled from an ancient site of arcane rituals to a commercial centre with international tourist appeal.
More and more of the shrine instructions are appearing in English, as in the blue poster in the top right asking visitors to rinse their hands.
As well as the advertisements at the bottom and on the right hand side, the panel has a What is Shinto explanation, a precinct map, gokito requests of the kami, how to pray, and a calendar of annual events.
As an explanation of Shinto, the panel says: ‘Shinto is the indigenous faith of the Japanese. It is a way of life and a way of thinking that has been an integral part of Japanese culture since ancient times. It is the foundation for the yearly life-cycles, beginning with the New Year’s Day visit Japanese pay to a Shinto shrine to wish for good luck.’
As an explanation Jinja, the panel says: ‘Since ancient times, Japanese have expressed the divine energy or life-force of the natural world as kami.’
As an explanation of kami, the panel says: ‘Since ancient times Japanese have expressed the divine energy or life force of the natural world as kami.’ An interesting explanation for a shrine dedicated to ancestral spirits of the Kamo clan!
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For an account of other changes and additions at Shimogamo, see here.
