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Fertility rites

March 13, 2013 / John D. / 0 Comments

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. / 0 Comments

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.

The petrified yatagarasu crow

Magical view from inside a sacred tree

Nachi shrine with the ubiquitous (in Kumano) three-legged crow

Gateway from shrine to temple: Seiganto-ji was only separated from the shrine after 1868

Like Nachi, Seiganto-ji belongs to the Kii Mountains World Heritage site. It boasts the biggest bell of its kind in Japan.

Seiganto-ji boasts too a pagoda with the best view in Japan

Kumano 2): Jimmu

March 11, 2013 / John D. / 2 Comments

Emperor Jimmu, putative founder of the imperial line

Shinto mythology tells of how a descendant of the sun goddess named Jimmu, who was living on the east coast of Kyushu, set off to bring ‘enlightened rule’ to the troubled provinces in Honshu. Accordingly under the leadership of his elder brother (Itsuse no mikoto) Jimmu set off on a journey of conquest, passing along the Inland Sea by boat and landing abortively on the west coast of the Kii Peninsula, where his elder brother was killed and his forces pushed back by opposition from local clans.

The beach at Kumano where Jimmu is said to have landed his invasion force

Realising as a descendant of Amaterasu he should attack with the sun at his back, Jimmu moved around to the east coast and landed on a Kumano beach south of Shingu where he made his way inland but was unable to progress further in the mountains. At this point Amaterasu sent a three-legged crow to guide him onwards.

After reaching Kashiwara in the Yamato river basin, he set up a palace and became the first emperor of a fledgling state that was later to conquer the rest of Japan. Accordingly he is no. 1 in the imperial line, of which the present emperor is no. 125. (For a full list, see here.)

Historians doubt that there was ever any such figure as Emperor Jimmu. On the other hand, as with King Arthur and other legends, it’s possible that the story holds a nucleus of truth and reflects a race memory of past migration. Jimmu might even be a composite figure, around whom stories of the past coalesced. In this respect it’s interesting to trace the local legends that have accrued around the path of conquest.

Takashima Island in the Inland Sea, where Itsuse and Jimmu are believed to have made camp

The story begins in Miyazaki, where the city’s eponymous shrine honours him as kami and claims to stand on the site of his palace. In the Inland Sea, off the Okayama coast, is an island where Itsuse and Jimmu are said to have made camp and rested before launching their attack on the west coast of the Kii Hanto, somewhere in the area around present-day Osaka. The remains of a prehistoric castle have been unearthed on the island.

On the Kumano coast, south of Shingu, is a beach where Jimmu is said to have landed, and not far away is a memorial stone marking the place where he is believed to have built a small palace. Thereafter it is said that he noticed a strange light some twenty kilometers away, and when he went to investigate it turned out to be the mighty Nachi waterfall, the biggest in Japan. Realising the force of the kami, Jimmu made due acknowledgement to its spiritual presence, thereby initiating worship at the falls.

The sacred Nachi waterfall, allegedly discovered by Jimmu

Memorial marker at the supposed site of Jimmu's palace near the Kumano coast

Following this Jmmu made his way up the peninsula, and it’s reasonable to suppose he would have used the Kumano River as a means to progress inland, travelling upriver as far as Hongu or beyond. The river now has little water but in past centuries served as an important pilgrimage route with boats running between the coast (Shingu) and the main shrine of Hongu some forty kilometers away.

According to legend, when Jimmu reached the Yamato area, he built a palace where Kashihara Shrine now stands, and in Meiji times his supposed grave was located nearby using Kojiki mythology as a guide. He reached the peak of his fame in 1940 when he was made a hero of State Shinto and enormous celebrations held for the “2600th anniversary” of this putative founder of Japan. Now, like King Arthur, he’s a figure enveloped in myth and romance, subject to speculation by historians as to how much fact there really is in all the fantasy.

Kashihara Shrine, supposedly built on the site of Jimmu's last residence and near his final resting place.

Kashihara Shrine picture book story of Jimmu: here he sets out on his expedition

A three-legged crow guides Jimmu through the Kumano mountains

Jimmu holds a ritual of gratitude to his ancestor Amaterasu for his salvation

At Kashihara Jimmu holds court and initiates the business of state

Kumano 1): Hayatama Taisha

March 10, 2013 / John D. / 1 Comment

The stunning freshly painted colours of the Shingu shrine suggest that it is thriving

Kumano is a land of legends, and together with Yamato and Izumo it’s one of Japan’s spiritual heartlands. It’s also part of the Kii peninsula World Heritage site boasting three shrines, two temples, pilgrimage routes and a hot spring. Most famously of all, it’s famous for the Kumano Sanzan – the three great shrines of Hayatama, Nachi and Hongu.

The shrine's sacred tree, over 800 years old

The animism of the early shrines was later overlaid by Buddhist notions of a Pure Land lying in the south, such that the shrines became part of huge syncretic complexes which lasted until the forced separation of the religions in 1868. In the middle ages the shrines became the focus of pilgrimages by emperors no less than the common man. They were so popular that they were described as a line of ants headed for Kumano. (The Hayatama shrine treasury houses some 1200 items offered by pilgrims in the past.)

Hayatama lies in the town of Shingu close to the mouth of the Kumano River (Hongu lies some 40 kms upstream). It originated with the remarkable Gotobiki Rock, which lies fifteen minutes walk away at Kamikura Jinja (an auxiliary shrine and part of the World Heritage designation). It was here that the three kami worshipped at the shrine first ‘descended’ – presumably a reference to clan ancestors having arrived by boat at the coast. Later a new shrine was established away from the rock, at the present location, which is why the town that developed around it is called Shingu (meaning ‘new shrine’).

In the compound is a sacred tree which is venerated for its size, vitality and age. It’s the largest “Nagi no ki” (Podocarpus nagi) in Japan, and was supposedly planted by a samurai called Taira no Shigemori over 850 years ago. The leaves are tough and hard to break, which is why womenfolk used to take them as charms to place at the back of mirrors so that their relationships would not be broken.

Yatagarasu, the three-legged crow

Wherever you go in Kumano, the three-legged yatagarasu is likely to make an appearance. In the Kojiki (710) the crow appears as a messenger from the sun goddess Amaterasu to her descendant Emperor Jimmu, whose mission to invade the Honshu heartland had been stalled in the Kii Peninsula.

Interestingly, mythology in other countries also associates the sun with crows, and a priest at Nachi Taisha told me he thought it was because of the black spots which can be seen on the sun. For myself, however, I see it as a reference to an ancestral clan leader of the crow tribe who allied himself with the invading Jimmu forces. He’s worshipped now as a founding figure at Kamigamo Jinja in Kyoto, to where his descendants presumably made their way in later times.

The three-legged crow can thus be seen as a shamanic ancestor, like the crow totems of Native American tribes, though few Japanese including priests seem to have any notion of this. However, thanks to the continuity of Japanese society, the figure is still venerated today and promoted by the Kumano and Kamigamo shrines. And characteristically for a culture of cuteness, it’s been adopted too as a symbol of the Japanese football team (some of whom, like Shinji Kagawa, do indeed appear to have three feet!!).

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Wikipedia has a piece about the three-legged crow in different cultures here.
For more about the yatagarasu and crow connections in Kyoto’s Kamigamo Jinja, see here or here.

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The sparkling new buildings of the Hayatama Shrine in Shingu show that it continues to thrive thanks to its legendary fame and World Heritage status

Yatagarasu Shrine, the subshrine to the right, dedicated to the three-legged crow in the Hayatama compound

The Gotobiki rock to which the Hayatama kami descended, with the Kamikura Shrine nestling below

The astounding Kamikura Jinja, one of the most impressive sites that Shinto has to offer

Ancestral monuments

March 10, 2013 / John D. / 1 Comment

The 'Nintoku burial mound' at Sakai, Osaka, considered the third largest funeral monument in the world

(Picture above shows the so-called ‘Nintoku burial mound’ aka Daisen kofun (c.400 AD) in Sakai, Osaka, considered to be the third largest funeral monument in the world)

In the compelling Japan, An Attempt at Interpretation (1904) Lafcadio Hearn put forward the notion that Japanese culture in general, and Shinto in particular, was shaped by ancestor worship in its various forms – domestically in the form of family ancestors; locally in the form of former clan leaders; nationally in the form of imperial figures.

In the book Hearn claims that ancestor worship is the basis of religion everywhere, in that spirits living on after death developed into deities and gods. According to this theory, monuments to the dead were the first kind of temples where the notion of otherwordliness was fostered. One thinks of the monumental structures of the ancient world – like the Pyramids, Stonehenge and the huge burial mounds of Japan.

It’s of interest therefore that new research at Stonehenge has thrown up evidence of its link with the dead. As elsewhere in the world, the celebrations that took place there were apparently linked to the stars and seasonal change – at midwinter and midsummer, the veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest. It’s no coincidence then that New Year and Obon remain the two great celebrations of the Japanese year.

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Monument to the dead? (courtesy English Heritage)

Researchers Propose New Stonehenge Theory (Sylvia Hui in the Huffington Post)

LONDON — British researchers have proposed a new theory for the origins of Stonehenge: It may have started as a giant burial ground for elite families around 3,000 B.C. New studies of cremated human remains excavated from the site suggest that about 500 years before the Stonehenge we know today was built, a larger stone circle was erected at the same site as a community graveyard, researchers said Saturday.

“These were men, women, children, so presumably family groups,” University College London professor Mike Parker Pearson, who led the team, said. “We’d thought that maybe it was a place where a dynasty of kings was buried, but this seemed to be much more of a community, a different kind of power structure.” Parker Pearson said archeologists studied the cremated bones of 63 individuals, and believed that they were buried around 3,000 B.C.

The location of many of the cremated bodies was originally marked by bluestones, he said. That earlier circular enclosure, which measured around 300 feet (91 meters) across, could have been the burial ground for about 200 more people, Parker Pearson said. The team, which included academics from more than a dozen British universities, also put forth some theories about the purpose of the second Stonehenge – the monument still standing in the countryside in southern England today. Various theories have been proposed about Stonehenge, including that it was a place for Druid worship, an observatory for astronomical studies, or a place of healing, built by early inhabitants of Britain who roamed around with their herds.

Parker Pearson said the latest study suggested that Stonehenge should be seen less a temple of worship than a kind of building project that served to unite people from across Britain. Analysis of the remains of a Neolithic settlement near the monument indicated that thousands of people traveled from as far as Scotland to the site, bringing their livestock and families for huge feasts and celebrations during the winter and summer solstices.

The team studied the teeth of pigs and cattle found at the “builders’ camp,” and deduced that the animals were mostly slaughtered around nine months or 15 months after their spring births. That meant they were likely eaten in feasts during the midwinter and midsummer, Parker Pearson said. “We don’t think (the builders) were living there all the time. We could tell that by when they were killing the pigs – they were there for the solstices,” he said.

The researchers believe that the builders converged seasonally to build Stonehenge, but not for very long – likely over a period of a decade or so. The mass monument building is thought to end around the time when the “Beaker people,” so called because of their distinctive pottery, arrived from continental Europe, Parker Pearson said.

Ancestor worship at the burial mound of Kyoto's founder, Emperor Kammu

Ancestor worship at the burial mound of Kyoto’s founder, Emperor Kammu

Bamboo links

March 7, 2013 / John D. / 1 Comment

Bamboo grove at Iwashimizu Hachiman

The interesting Heritage of Japan site has a new article about the bamboo links of Japan and the rest of Asia. Bamboo is prominent in Shinto trappings and an important part of traditional culture, and as in other areas it turns out that ancient Chinese beliefs were crucial in shaping the worldview. (The below is an edited extract: for the full article, see here.)

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Bamboo groves are commonly found near Shinto shrines, and sometimes are grown as part of a sacred barrier against evil. They are commonly to be found near many Buddhist temples. The traditional Japanese bamboo fountain, the Tsukubai, is said to embody and illustrate purity and sacredness and the seed of the bamboo tree is said to be tied to the mythical phoenix often depicted in Japanese arts, which is said to eat only bamboo seeds (Source: Spiritual Significance of the Japanese Bamboo Tree).

Bamboo water basin

Japanese folktales frequently feature woodcutters or childless folk finding a child with magical, superhuman or maverick qualities from a bamboo grove. The “Tale of the Bamboo Cutter” (Taketori Monogatari) tells of a princess from the Moon emerging from a shining bamboo section. See excerpt from Wikipedia entry below:

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, also known as Princess Kaguya, is a 10th century Japanese folktale. It is considered the oldest extant Japanese narrative and an early example of proto-science fiction. Specifically, it is among the first texts of any culture to imagine that the Moon is an inhabited world and describe travel between it and the Earth.

It primarily details the life of a mysterious girl called Kaguya-hime, who was discovered as a baby inside the stalk of a glowing bamboo plant. She is said to be from Tsuki-no-Miyako (“The Capital of the Moon”) and has unusual hair that shines with a light like the moon.

‘The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter’ is said to have an equivalent version in Tibetan folklore, however there remain questions about whether the Japanese 9th century tale emanated from Tibetan sources, or whether the tale was brought to Tibet via Japanese military incursions in the 1920s.

Bamboo is used in a variety of ways, as in this structure at Kumaso Jinja near Izumo

And yet, due to much recent DNA research showing that Tibetans and Japanese share ancient ancestral genes, it is possible that the lucky fertility symbol beliefs and bamboo-cutter-birth tales reflect the presence of the earliest ancient and related migratory lineages out of Southeast Asia, likely represented by lineages bearing haplogroups C while taboo beliefs emanated from haplogroup D-bearing tribes (See ‘Origin and dispersal of Y chromosome haplogroup C’ (Zhong et al. 2010) and also ‘The Himalayas as a Directional Barrier to Gene Flow’).

“Haplogroup C, is spread over a large region of Asia and Australia, as well as the North and South American continents. However, it represents the paths of the early human migrations, … mostly prevalent only in people originating from the coastal regions, and the few Native Americans and Australian Aborigines left alive today”.

Haplogroup DE: … The Asian lineages Haplogroups DE and D are found primarily in Tibet and the Andaman Islands, and Haplogroup D is present in India, in some isolated northeastern tribes.” — DNA Haplogroups

It is hereby suggested there are several different sources from which bamboo-related beliefs and ideas were derived, the ideas of bamboo as auspicious and the earliest tales of birth of persons or characters from the bamboo grove were from lineages that are related to the C and D haplogroups (Southeast Asian as well as Andamanese emergence from bamboo; Tibetan bamboo cutter tale); the function of bamboo grove warding off evil.

However, since sacred bamboo groves around Shinto shrines hold a clear function of warding off evil which is similar to Chinese beliefs of bamboo driving off evil spirits, as well as Northeastern Indian-Nepali ideas about bamboo groves as ‘evil traps’, thus corresponding to the distribution pattern of DE/D haplogroups, suggest the superstitions and beliefs concerning bamboo originated from Southwestern China which is also where the natural bamboo forests are distributed.

Bamboo light-up at the Nonomiya Shrine, Kyoto

Omizutori at Todai-ji

March 7, 2013 / John D. / 2 Comments

Pine torches flare up and sparks fly at Todai-ji's Nigatsudo

Spectacular evenings at Todai-ji at the moment, with the nightly Omizutori festival (described below). It’s on until March 14 and definitely worth checking out. Given the number of times wooden buildings have burnt down in Japanese history, it’s amazing anyone came up with this idea but somehow it’s managed to last for something like a millennium.

What does it all have to do with Shinto? Well, you could say Todai-ji was the first bastion of syncretism and it’s interesting that the building where the sacred water is kept is festooned with a shimenawa. Even today Shinto-Buddhist belief is clearly alive at the temple… (feature on Todai-ji’s Hachiman connection coming up soon)…

The Nigatsudo building where the festival takes place, in front of which is a small protective shrine

The building holding the sacred water

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The following courtesy of japan.com

Omizutori is the commonly used name for Shunie, a series of events held annually from March 1 to 14 at Todaiji Temple. This collection of Buddhist repentance rituals has been held every year for over 1250 years, making it one of the oldest reoccurring Buddhist events in Japan.

Omizutori is performed at Nigatsudo Hall, a sub complex of Todaiji, which stands not far from the temple’s main hall on the slope of a hill. Nigatsudo literally means “second month hall”, referring to the second month of the lunar calendar, when Omizutori has traditionally been held. The second month of the lunar calendar roughly corresponds to March of the solar calendar.

Fire at both end of the wooden building. A headache for the fire brigade, you would think...

Among the many different events held during Omizutori, Otaimatsu is the most famous and spectacular. Just after sunset on every night from March 1 through 14, giant torches, ranging in length from six to eight meters, are carried up to Nigatsudo’s balcony and held over the crowd. The burning embers, that shower down from the balcony, are thought to bestow the onlookers with a safe year.

The size of the torches and the duration of Otaimatsu vary from day to day. On most days, ten medium sized torches are brought up to and carried across the balcony one after the other, and the entire event lasts about twenty minutes, while the audience stands in the courtyard below the wooden temple hall.

On the 12th and 14th, however, the procedure is slightly different. On the 14th, the last day of Omizutori, the event lasts only about five minutes, but all ten torches are brought up to the balcony at the same time, making for a particularly spectacular sight.

On the 12th, the torches are larger and more numerous, and the ceremony lasts longer. It is also the most crowded day, so that most spectators cannot settle down in front of the Nigatsudo, but are kept continuously moving past the hall in a queue, limiting actual viewing time to around five to ten minutes.

In the night from March 12 to March 13 between around 1:30am and 2:30am, priests descend repeatedly from the Nigatsudo by torchlight to draw water from a well at the base of the temple hall. The well’s water is said to flow only once a year, and to have restorative powers. It is this event that is actually named Omizutori (“water drawing”). Yet the entire two-week event has become popularly known under its name.

Following the water drawing event, the mysterious Dattan ceremony is performed inside the Nigatsudo hall. During the ceremony, horns are blown, bells are rung and priests swing around burning torches inside the wooden building. The event comes to an end around 3:30am.

Dates: March 1st-14th (time and length depend on the day. Information available here.)