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Izumo Taisha Part 2: Structure

November 15, 2011 / John D. / 2 Comments

Approaching a realm of hills and mists; once a mighty 48 meter shrine might have been visible

When you approach Izumo Shrine these days, it’s along a busy road and past humdrum buildings. Once, however, the approach must have been breathtaking. Nestled against tree-covered slopes, there stood an enormous shrine whose dimensions dwarfed its surrounds.

Today the honden (inner sanctuary) is thought to be half the size of what it was in Heian times. Yet even now it remains formidable. In fact, size is what Izumo is all about. ‘It exudes masculine power, like the hunting lodge of some mountain giant,’ writes Jospeh Cali in the forthcoming Guide to Shinto Shrines.

Unfortunately the honden cannot be seen at the moment as it is being rebuilt (for roughly the 25th time since the seventh century). It shows the emphasis Japanese put on continuity. Renewal and continuity. The present head, amazingly, is the 84th generation of the same Senge family who have run the shrine since its foundation. Hereditary succession says a lot about Japan’s conservatism and sense of an enduring self.

Like Ise, the honden here has a symbolic central pillar (shin no mihashira), reflecting the mythological pillar by which Japan’s creators Izanagi and Izanami descended from heaven. As in shamanism, spirits use the pillar to move between worlds. The cosmic connection is built into the fabric of the building.

Model of how Izumo might once have looked

Former shrine
There exists a tenth-century book called Kuchizusami, written to educate noblemen’s sons, which contains a reference to Izumo being higher than the massive 45-meter Todaiji Hall of the Great Buddha at Nara. Could it really be true? For years modern scholars speculated about the likelihood of such a building.

Clues to the possible construction came from a medieval draft held at Izumo, and experts came up with models of how the shrine might have looked Then in 2000 came an exciting discovery in the precincts of the shrine. Three huge cedar trunks were unearthed, which had been bound together to make one huge pillar. It was a vast three meters in diameter. The discovery caused huge excitement, because it showed that a huge shrine could well have existed in the past.

The present consensus is that the find dates from the 1248 construction, which was the last time the tall main shrine of ancient times was renewed. Thereafter circumstances led to the building of a lower shrine, with construction on a reduced scale during the medieval period and the fighting of the Warring States era.

Models of how Izumo’s honden may have looked before the middle ages, when it was the tallest wooden building in Japan, and possibly the world.

Glimpses of former glory

Inside the kaguraden, which copes easily with the masses of daytrippers

Reminders of Izumo’s former glory remain in the majesty of Izumo’s solid structures, such as the kaguraden. Unlike other shrines, this is not an open-sided stage, but a large building of such dimensions that whole busloads of tourists are swallowed whole.

The kaguraden boasts the world’s largest shimenawa (rice rope). It’s a massive affair that weighs five tons, so you want to be careful when standing below. At many shrines around the country, you find Japanese wanting to leave something for good luck – putting a stone on top of a torii is popular at some places. Here in Izumo there’s a tradition of throwing a coin up into the shimenawa. If it sticks, the gods will be happy and fortune will smile on you. I struck lucky with my first throw!

Izumo has pleasant and spacious grounds. Next door is the fascinating Shimane Museum of Izumo History, with the models pictured above as well as videos and explanations of the archaeological record. Fascinating stuff for those with a sense of curiosity about the past. Here at Izumo, history is encoded in the very structure of the place.

Izumo tree covered with fortune slips. This is the country's premier enmusubi shrine (good connections).

The shrine horse, messenger to the gods, getting a pat

Gaijin trying to get a coin to stick in the shimenawa

Reverence at one of Izumo's many subshrines. Who says the Japanese are not religious?

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For an account of Izumo’s foundation, see Part One. For some stunning photos of Izumo Taisha, see ojisanjake’s blogspot.

Izumo Taisha Part 1: Foundation

November 10, 2011 / John D. / 4 Comments

Foundation
Izumo Taisha is more than a shrine. It’s a legend, a symbol, a reminder of a once glorious past. It’s the country’s foremost shrine for enmusubi (love connections). It’s got the biggest honden (inner sanctuary) in Japan, and the biggest shimenawa (rice rope) in the world. Experts think at one time it may have had the tallest building in the world too. According to some, it’s the oldest of all Shinto shrines, dating back to before the imperial ancestors ‘descended from heaven’. It remains, even now, second only to Ise in the popular imagination.

in reality no one is sure when exactly the shrine was founded. There was a religious site here around 2000 years ago, for magatama sacred beads and halberd offerings were found nearby. Speculation has suggested a date in the seventh century for the establishment of the shrine. No doubt, like elsewhere, worship in the early centuries took place outdoors and was focussed on the hilltop or sacred rock.

Burial of ritual swords to the mountain kami opposite

Reconstruction of the ritual at Kojindani, where 358 swords were offered to the kami

In the Shimane Museum of Ancient Izumo, next to the shrine, is an exhibit showing the burial of 358 bronze swords at the Kojindani site.

The swords were found in 1984 and are thought to have been offerings to the mountain god opposite. Alongside the swords were bronze bells and spearheads.

The exhibit gives an idea of how worship must have been 2000 years ago: open-air, and up on the hillside. It’s notable here that Shinto scholar Ponsonby-Fane claimed the Izumo Taisha site was originally settled by immigrants who practised ancestor worship on the hill behind the present shrine. It was only with advances in civilisation that there came a move towards the building of shrines at the foot of the hills.

Okuninushi, kami of Izumo Taisha

Statue of Okuninushi in front of the shrine

The main deity of the shrine is Okuninushi, a mythological descendant of Susanoo. He ruled over the land of Izumo at a time when the rival Yamato kingdom was pressing its claims to national supremacy. He’s remembered not only as an earthly ruler, but as ‘the god of marriage’. There are a number of famous stories associated with him: one is the ceding of Izumo to Yamato.

According to Nihon shoki, Yamato cast an envious eye on Izumo and sent emissaries, who either defected or were defeated. Finally they mounted a show-down, before which an aging Okuninushi submitted, in consultation with his sons. According to the terms of the treaty, the country was to be divided, with Yamato taking charge of the worldly realm and Izumo the spiritual.

It’s thought the treaty may have taken place at the beginning of the fifth century. In Izumo there were square burial mounds in the fourth century. Keyhole mounds, as used in Yamato, started to appear in the mid-fifth century. By the 540s Izumo representatives were at the Yamato court.

As part of the treaty with Izumo, the Yamato authorities agreed to build a magnificent palace for Okuninushi. (He was also later honoured as a kami called Onomuchi at the Yamato shrine of Omiwa.) Most likely, Okuninushi’s palace was turned into a shrine to his memory some time after his death. It’s worth noting here that the same word (miya) is used for palace and shrine – in a culture of ancestor worship, dead rulers became kami.

The rabbit and the princess

Okuninushi and the rabbit he rescued

There are two other famous legends about Okuninushi. One has to do with the white rabbit of Inaba. It used to live on the island of Oki and tricked some sharks into letting it jump over their backs to the mainland. The angry sharks took revenge by skinning the rabbit.

it so happened that Okuninushi and his band of brothers happened to be passing through Inaba at the time, when they came upon the rabbit. The brothers had fun by telling the rabbit to go wash in the salty sea. Okuninushi oin the other hand took pity on it and suggested fresh water and a covering of soft cattail. This proved effective and the rabbit was cured.

In gratitude the rabbit became an ally of Okuninushi, aiding and protecting him in his future travails. It serves now as his familiar.

Young woman eagerly checking her fortune slip while others queue

Another story tells of Okuninushi escaping persecution by running to the underworld, where he met and fell in love with Susanoo no mikoto’s daughter, a princess called Suseri-hime. Susanoo put him to the test with a roomful of snakes, which he survived thanks to a blue scarf Suseri had given him. Further tests followed, which again he survived thanks to other scarves supplied by Suseri-hime. When Susanoo showed no intention of letting up, the lovers escaped back to Izumo where they built a palace, married and lived happily ever after.

The happy marriage with Suseri-hime led to the tradition of ‘enmusubi‘ (good connections) for which the shrine is famous. It means there are always young girls around, eagerly reading fortune slips and purchasing love amulets. Of all the wedding halls in Japan, that of Izumo is said to be the most highly prized.

(Incidentally, an archaeologist at my university suggested the association of Okuninushi and enmusubi arose from his role as host to all the other kami of Japan. During the many meetings they hold, Okuninushi takes the prime role in networking and making important connections between them.)

There’s one further aspect to Okuninushi, for he became conflated with one of the seven lucky gods called Daikoku. Why? Simply because the reading of the Chinese characters is the same in both cases. Daikoku is a pot-bellied deity who carries a sack on his back, promising a financial windfall for those who beseech him. Go to Izumo Taisha then, and fortune may well lie in store for you – in more than one sense!

Lining up beneath the trademark Izumo shimenawa, symbolic of the 'knot' that Okuninushi ties between people

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For some stunning photos of Izumo Taisha, see ojisanjake’s blogspot.
Information for this article drew on Joseph Cali’s forthcoming Guide to Shinto Shrines

Izumo: myths, mists and otherness

November 9, 2011 / John D. / 6 Comments

Izumo coast

Some of my favourite places are those enriched by myth, but which have escaped untouched from the ravages of modern life. Take the west of England, with its Arthurian tales, Somerset legends and Glastonbury mystique. Here in Japan the ancient byways of Kumano and the Yamato basin hold similar appeal. But even they can hardly compete with the allure of Izumo, on the ‘backside of Japan’. Put together with the prefectural capital of Matsue, one of the most attractive towns in Japan, and the area is a must-see for those who like to get off the beaten track. I’ve only made two short visits, but I hope to go for a longer spell next year.

Mythologically, Izumo is intriguing. It provides a dark alternative to the victorious Yamato narrative, which links the imperial line with descent from the sun goddess. By contrast Izumo is associated with Amaterasu’s brother, Susanoo no mikoto, the unruly storm god who throws a tantrum and causes trouble in the high plains of heaven. Amaterasu famously withdraws into a cave; Susanoo ends up an exile on earth where he wanders around the Hii River in Izumo. Amaterasu is female and determinedly Japanese. Susanoo is male and has foreign associations.

Most likely Susanoo represents Korean migrants, who came over from the kingdom of Silla and established a kingdom in the Izumo area. The rival Yamato kingdom, based near Nara, had ties to another Korean state, namely Paekche. No doubt when it came to writing the Kojiki (712), the Yamato myth-makers wanted to disparage Susanoo by having him defecate in Amaterasu’s rice fields, etc. In Izumo, though, he’s a folk hero who slew an eight-headed monster terrifying the territory and then founded the ruling dynasty.

The San’in region where Izumo is found occupies the Jpan Sea area of the Chugoku Region (Yamaguchi, Hiroshima, Shimane, Tottori, Okayama). It’s the shady side of the mountains (San’in = Mountain Shadows), with the southern part known as the sunny side (Sanyou = Mountain Sun). Significantly, there is a yin-yang significance in the Chinese characters. The Izumo region is all about ‘yin’ – darkness, moon, death, the subterranean and the unconscious.

Susanoo slaying the ‘yamata no orochi’ monster

Descent into the underworld

Yamato is represented by the sun goddess, Amaterasu; by contrast there’s something very dark about the nature of Izumo. Its name means ‘out of the clouds’, and the neighbouring area, from which Lafcadio Hearn took his Japanese name, is called Yakumo, ‘eight-fold clouds’. Compared with the sunny Pacific, it’s fair to say this is the overcast and gloomy side of Japan, as I know all too well from long years of living in Hokurirku.

It’s tempting to see a yin-yang opposition in the east-west contrast. The land of the sun, a yang element, is ruled over by a female goddess, whereas the land of darkness, a yin element, is ruled over by a male deity. The two are finely balanced, providing the energy field for the country as a whole.

I was only in the Izumo region for three days this time, but it was dark, rainy and overcast for virtually the whole three days. Swirling clouds. Mist hung on the hills. You have the feel that the veil between this world and the other is stretched thin. Ghostly shapes can form from the vapours at any time.

The climate is mirrored in the mythology, for the area is permeated with associations of death, darkness and the spirit realm. This is where Izanagi visited Izanami in the underworld after her demise, only to find her corpse rotten with maggots. You can see the boulder with which he supposedly stopped up the underworld at Yomotsu Hirasaka – though personally I found it lacking in atmosphere and, shockingly, it doesn’t even block the path properly!

‘Eight-fold clouds’ over Izumo

Peering into the underworld behind the boulder with which Izanagi supposedly stopped up the underworld

The setting sun

One of the great delights of my Izumo trip was discovering the delights of Hinomisaki Shrine. Serendipity is so much more enthralling than the expectation of something grand. The shrine is surprisingly large and well-appointed for such an out of the way place, stuck as it is on the end of the Izumo peninsula.

Spiritually it’s an intriguing shrine, for it honours both Amaterasu and Susanoo in separate haiden. Amaterasu is the primal deity, though it’s not the rising sun but the setting sun over the Japan Sea which is the focus. ‘We have a mandate to protect Japan at night,’ I was told by the couple manning the shrine office, though they were unable or unwilling to tell me who gave them the mandate.

There is also a shrine to Susanoo, who’s allegedly buried somewhere on the hill behind. According to local folklore, he hurled a kashihara branch up the hill and said that wherever it landed, his soul would rest.

The shrine does its rituals at sunset, which happened by chance to be the time we visited. There was a small group at worship in what seemed an unorthodox fashion, with an almost jazz-like riff on the taiko drum. I tried to find out from the people in the office what was going on, but they wouldn’t tell me anything more than it was special to the shrine.

Afterwards at a nearby restaurant we ate Izumo soba and watched the gathering darkness take hold. Here, in a land of mists and myths, it was good to know the shrine had a mandate to watch over us.

Izumo soba – three in one and one in three. The soba uses the whole grain, in contrast to the soba of other regions

Hinomisaki – small village, large shrine

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(This entry draws on ‘Izumo as the Other Japan: Construction vs Reality’ by Klaus Antoni in Japanese Religions Vol.30 (1&2) p. 1-20)

Izumo’s welcome party (Kamiari sai)

November 9, 2011 / John D. / 0 Comments

It might seem an impossibility to see all eight myriad of Japan’s kami in one single place. But every year there is an opportunity to do just that, in one of Japan’s most attractive regions. It takes place in Shimane prefecture, by the side of the Japan Sea.

The beach before dusk

Twenty minutes walk from Izumo shrine is a pleasant stretch of sandy beach. It’s here in the autumn that kami from the whole of Japan are welcomed. As in olden days, they prefer to travel by sea: land routes were few and far between in a country of unpassable mountains.

A tent is set up facing the sea, with a simple altar on which sits Ryuja-san – the snake familiar who acts as guide to the kami. Snakes and dragons are often conflated in the Japanese imagination, and in this case the dragon-snake may be a reference to the sea serpents that are blown here from southern parts in the stormy monsoon season.

Four ritual fires signal the place for the kami to land, and there are two himorogi tree branches into which the kami will descend. In the gathering darkness the throng of people is intense, and by the time of the ceremony there must be all of five thousand people crammed around the tent and along the narrow processional path. The ritual itself takes thirty minutes or so. In the open darkness the chant of norito is barely audible above the lapping waves, but there’s an unmistakable wailing sound to announce the arrival of the kami.

Some of the onlookers, holding gohei for the kami

All of a sudden priests are pushing through the crowd and asking spectators to step aside and observe silence. Some people annoyingly continue to chat or talk on mobile phones. Does it disturb the kami? It’s hard to say for they are secreted through the crowd on the himorogi behind white sheets.

The yaoyorozu (eight myriad) kami have arrived at Izumo, initiating a month-long celebration that starts with a kagura dance for them at Izumo Taisha. Those in the know leave early to secure their place in the shrine’s dance hall. Meanwhile, on the beach, others linger behind to pick over the remains of the ritual. Some scoop the ash of the fires into containers as a sacred item.

Collecting ash from the fires

Once at Izumo Taisha the kami are entertained by the kagura dance, then borne away to rest for the night after their long journey. They stay in a kind of dormitory along the sides of the worship hall, known as jukyusha. In front of them lies a busy month of conferences and shrine visiting. They will remain at Izumo Taisha for a week, then circulate around eight other shrines in all.

As well as attending ceremonies at the places they visit, they have much to discuss – the granting of love ties, the grain yields and saké production for the coming year, plus other weighty matters. On the 26th day after their arrival there is a farewell ceremony at Mankusen Shrine, and a final leave-taking at Izumo Taisha before they disperse back to their respective homes.

In the pre-Meiji calendar, this time of year was known as kanna-zuki (month without kami). In Izumo, though, it was known as kamiari-zuki (month with kami). It’s a reminder of the power that the Izumo region enjoyed before the fifth century, and how it was given spiritual dominion of the country in a treaty with the Yamato hegemon. Even now it remains in an odd kind of way an alternative power centre to the primacy of Ise. In the days to come, while the kami circulate Izumo, I intend to explore this fascinating area in further entries.

Kami leaving the kaguraden

The 'jukyusha' where the kami spend the night

Edo-era depiction of the kami in conference

Kyoto’s secret power spot

November 4, 2011 / John D. / 1 Comment

A rare sight: open gates at the Daigengu on Yoshida hill

Not many people know of Yoshida Shrine’s Daigengu. Yet this hexagonal building could be considered the city’s secret power spot, for it enshrines all the kami that existed in medieval Japan. Yes, that’s right: all the kami ! All 3,132 of them. There’s nowhere else in Japan that you can get to pray to anything like that many kami in one visit.

The shrine is properly known as Daigengu Saijosho (Ceremonial Site and Shrine of the Great Origin). It was first established in 1484, and the present buildings date from the early seventeenth century. It owes itself to the remarkable Yoshida Kanetomo (1435-1511), head of Yoshida shrine, who made an audacious bid for supreme spiritual authority.

The semi-circular arcade around the main shrine which enshrines all the kami of the whole of Japan as it existed in Kanetomo's time

Yoshida Kanetomo
Kanetomo must have been a charismatic character. He lived at a time when Shinto was subsumed in Buddhism, and according to the honji-suijaku theory kami were considered traces of the Buddhist essence. They were local manifestations rather than the real thing, and they were in need of salvation. Buddhist priests served at many of the country’s shrines and prayed for enlightenment of the kami.

Kanetomo made a single-handed attempt to reverse all this by asserting kami primacy. Buddhist deities were secondary and owed their existence to kami, he claimed. He concocted a barely intelligible theory to substantiate his view, using metaphysical notions and arguments drawn from esoteric Buddhism. He maintained that all of creation derived from a kami called Kuni no Tokotachi, and falsely attributed to Shotoku Taishi a saying that Shinto was the root of the national culture, while Confucianism represented the leaves and Buddhism the fruit.

The model Naiku of Ise Jingu

Bid for supremacy
Kanetomo had good connections at court, for he had worked as Imperial Chamberlain and Senior Assistant Director of Divinities. No doubt this emboldened his drive for spiritual authority. He built an altar at Yoshida Shrine to serve as the centre for Shinto practice, thereby attempting to usurp Ise, and constructed the Daigengu with its semi-circular arcades to enshrine all the kami of the country.

For good measure Kanetomo built models of the Naiku and Geku of Ise Shrine at the back of the Daigengu courtyard. Then, in his most breath-taking stunt, he claimed that the sacred objects of Ise had flown to Yoshida! Such was his gall that he was able to persuade a gullible emperor to come and authenticate the objects.

The Shinryusha (Sacred Dragon Shrine), marking Kanetomo's burial place on Yoshida hill

Yoshida power
Kanetomo’s legacy was a body of work known as yuitsu Shinto (the one and only Shinto). He was also able to set up a system of licences issued by Yoshida Shrine which was highly influential in Edo times. It was only after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 that Yoshida lost its power, but it still remains one of the city’s great delights with its hillside setting next to Kyoto University.

The British Council used to have offices opposite Yoshida hill, on Imadegawa street. When I first visited Kyoto, I had an appointment at the Council and afterwards, drawn by the red torii at the base of the hill, wandered up the tree-lined paths of the enchanted hill. In a clearing at the top a lone saxophonist was blowing a melancholy tune, and the vista behind him opened up to a view of the city in the valley below. I knew then that I had to come and live in Kyoto…. Perhaps, unbeknown to me, I had been lured by the unseen power of the Daigengu!

(N.B. The Daigengu is usually shut, but opens exceptionally on the first day of every month; at New Year; and for Setsubun.)

The unique structure of the hexagonal main building

Poetry’s divine origins

November 1, 2011 / Green Shinto / 13 Comments

In a preface to the tenth-century Kokin Wakashu, the poet-courtier Ki no Tsurayuki describes the divine origins of Japanese verse. What interests me here is the origins of the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable pattern of short verse (tanka). As this was later adapted to the 5-7-5 of haiku, it’s a hallmark of Japanese poetry.

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Verse came into being when heaven parted from earth. Legend has it that in heaven it began with the verse of Princess Shitateru, wife to Prince Ame-wakamiko, and on earth with the song of Susano no mikoto. In the age of the gods, the number of letters of the tanka (short verse) was not fixed. It flowed forth as the heart wished to sing, but it seemed the meaning was difficult to understand. Susano no mikoto wrote in 31 letters. When he was building a palace in the province of Izumo to live with his wife, he saw eight-coloured clouds rise, and composed the following song:

Eight clouds arising
In Izumo where they formed
A fence eight-fold in nature
Within which the spouses lived –
An eight-fold fence, eight-fold fence

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Hopefully there are some poetry experts reading this… Robin Gill, Stephen Gill, Gaby Greve….? I wonder if they’d agree with my thesis that since Chinese influence was prevalent in Japan after the sixth and seventh centuries, the likelihood is that the 5-7 syllable pattern arose from Taoist numerology and the inclination to see odd numbers as favouring ki vitality and energy flows. it’s reflected too in the 7-5-3 children’s festival…

Nervous participant in the Shichi-Go-San, which officially takes place on Nov 15

The spirituality of haiku

October 30, 2011 / Green Shinto / 3 Comments

On Saturday I went to see a renku (linked verse) session, held at a subshrine of Kitano Tenmangu as an offering to the kami. This being Japan, and Shinto being Shinto, ritual was of the essence throughout. There was even a lengthy ritual of preparing the honorary ink-stone and brush – though they were not actually used since the verse was written in pencil !

A dance for the gods

Renku are usually 36 verses in length: in this case thirty had been written beforehand, leaving six to be composed on the spot. At their completion there was a dance performance with singing of the verses. Divine! The next day a follow-up was to be held at a Buddhist temple, showing that the syncretic spirit lives on in linked verse as elsewhere.

Chanting the written verses

A poetic week
One way and another I’ve had a most poetic week, rounded off with reading Chinese Tang poets and the Tao Te Ching today with my friend, the Taoist-Tibetan sage A.J.

Worldgirdling
Spacegracing
Passionenergy
Insightplay
Fallingwordfun

On my return from our café klatsch in the autumn rain, I was reminded of the following rather wonderful description of the spiritual aspects of haiku. It makes clear why verse is such a suitable offering to the kami.

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“Let me explain what I think haiku can do for the spirit. I believe that all the great sacred traditions show that consciousness began with only inner light, in a time when humanity was in union with a Supreme Being and Creator… The haiku woman or man (rather than the poet) is a person who stands inside a chaotic darkness and waits. This is not an idle way of waiting; it is alert, conscious and focused. What do they wait for? They wait for the lightning to strike – that lightning which illuminates the world around them.

To look at the world boldly, in the sudden light of haiku consciousness is to commit an act of love and complete understanding. Looking becomes presence – the gift of seeing, in depth, and with the power of discernment. It is a kind of satori beyond the critical mind and devoid of criticism. Compassion permeates this kind of mindfulness and attentiveness. Haiku leads us in the right direction, homewards, in a process of rediscovery and reassimilation of our compelling and inherent universal values.

In today’s prevailing atmosphere of chaos and disorder, haiku consciousness brings into focus the ambient disruption and cacophony, while highlighting the need for serenity, for the homecoming. We have lost sight of our own nature in the whirl of the day-to-day, in the fog of petty concerns. The quotidian overwhelms the crucial values of our existence; myopic greed and consumerism have put us at odds with our environment, with our only planet. Through haiku we can inch closer to a reconstruction of the lost harmony between ourselves and nature.

There are many words for what we have lost; our Tao, our way, our union with the gods, our fullness, our wholeness, our completeness. There can be no other remedy but a return to older ways of thinking and feeling. Haiku creates a new old completeness of Earth and Heaven, Man and God, visible and invisible. Through it we can train ourselves to regain our old consciousness.

This is my agenda for haiku consciousness; to awaken our metaphysical sensitivity, open our eyes wide, and—in a flash of understanding of all our blind decisions and wrong turns—finally choose the only tenable option, a soothing spiritual path to heal and recuperate, path for which we can use the same name as ancient traditions did – Tao, the Way, Eternal Home.

We must learn or relearn how to give love and how to receive love.”

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Extracted from Dr Drago Stambuk’s keynote address to the Asian Conference on Literature and Librarianship, 2011, in Osaka

The Heian-era verse writing festival held every spring at Kamigamo Jinja