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Shinto pilgrimages (Pye)

October 9, 2018 / John D. / 2 Comments

Pilgrims on the Kumano Kodo (Old Pathways), near Nachi Waterfall

The academic Michael Pye is known for his work on Buddhist pilgrimages, though in his book on the subject he devotes a chapter to consideration of comparable Shinto practices. The piece below is an abridged version of a paper based on this that is available with accompanying illustrations at academia.edu.

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‘The Structure of Religious Systems in Contemporary Japan: Shintô variations on Buddhist pilgrimage’ by Michael Pye

While Japan is well known for its Buddhist pilgrimages in Shikoku, in the Kansai region, and indeed all over the country, the more recent phenomenon of Shintō variations on this theme seems to have escaped notice so far. Making a journey to a single, specific Shintō shrine is a basic, recognizable and even important feature of Shintō.

Amy Chavez, Green Shinto friend, on the Shikoku Pilgrimage trail

Such a journey is known as o-mairi, the term used to refer to any religious movement directed towards a sacred focus at the level of primal religion. O-mairi may be very long and arduous or it may be extremely short. Historically speaking, the most dramatic example of o-mairi in Shintō, which certainly qualifies to be considered in the general context of pilgrimage, is the journey to the great Ise Shrine, a journey known in its heyday in the early part of the nineteenth century as o-Ise-mairi (c.f. Nishigaki Seiji 1983).

Ise Shrine at the time of the shikinen sengu series of rituals, which when completed draws the biggest number of pilgrims in Japan

However we are concerned here with the more specific phenomenon of circulatory pilgrimage (o-meguri) in Shintō. This may be regarded as a most interesting secondary phenomenon, both for Shintō and as concerns the wider theme of circulatory pilgrimage. It is evidently modelled on the Buddhist pilgrimages, which are older, and perhaps more directly on the Seven Gods of Fortune circuits.

At the time of writing, it appears that the idea of visiting a number of Shintō shrines and collecting the “seal” or “stamp” (shuin) of each one is becoming more and more widespread. Since the older Buddhist meaning of paying for the “seal” is in such cases completely lost, one might compare this practice rather with stamping a souvenir book with the rubber stamp of historic or remote railway stations. Such rubber stamps with inkpads are usually available somewhere in the waiting room or entrance hall of the station, and their use costs nothing.

At Buddhist temples by contrast, the “seal” has the rather complicated older significance, admittedly no longer evident to all, of being a receipt for a donation intended to enable a monk to copy a sutra on one’s behalf (not that this is in fact done as a direct result). On the other hand the visit to a Shintō shrine will usually be linked to a request for supernatural assistance in some matter or other. Thus the use of the stamp must be understood as part of the transaction, however lighthearted the mental connections may be. It will therefore cost something.

Traditional pilgrim garb was natural, simple – and hard on the feet.

A straightforward example of pilgrimage round linked Shintō shrines is known as Hassha Fukumairi or, literally, Good Fortune Visit to Eight Shrines. A fuller name is Good Fortune Visit to Eight Shrines in Downtown Tokyo. Significantly, another variation is Shitamachi Hachifukujin Meguri. In this designation hachifukujin means “eight gods of good fortune”, so that an association with the traditional Seven Gods of Fortune is created, although none of them are identical with these. Various leaflet-sized maps are provided for this circuit, showing convenient underground railway stations and in one case linking the shrines with an arrowed route. There is no numeration or any obligatory order for visiting.

Benten, the only female in the Seven Lucky Gods (Shichifukujin) and a muse of music and creativity, associated with water and the unconscious

Similar linkages of shrines are known in Kyōto. Indeed it is possible to see here a different starting part for the encouragement of sequential acts ofo-mairi. The major shrine known as Imamiya Jinja has within its grounds a whole series of sub-shrines which are listed (with the ending -sha). Visitors are encouraged to stop and pray before all of them. In commemoration they may purchase a large sheet of paper bearing the names of these shrines with a different seal for each.

In the centre is a kind of takarabune [treasure ship] reminiscent of those in which the Shichifukujin are sitting, but in this case with the name of Imamiya written on the sail. This is surrounded by an elevating text, which runs as follows: “By having a sincere heart, bright and pure thanks to the light of the very first day at the beginning of the year, you will find happiness at the eleven shrines in these grounds both now and throughout the year. Whosoever prays whole-heartedly will receive this wealth bestowing ship as the august token of the high, most revered great kami.” The conceptualisation and marketing of this remarkable assembly of divinities was initiated, according to a shrine attendant, “about ten years ago”, that is, in the early 1990’s.

A circuit which takes people around much of the city is known as “Kyōto Fourteen Shrines Seal Pilgrimage”, or “Kyōto Sixteen Shrines Seal Pilgrimage”. For this pilgrimage, or round tour, a large horizontally arranged paper is provided on which the seals of the various shrines can be stamped, thus encouraging visits to all of the shrines. Starting with New Year 1997 (Heisei 9), two shrines were added, making sixteen in all. The shrines added in 1997 are Goryō Jinja (KamiGoryō Jinja) and Imamiya Jinja. A reason for adding these two was cited at Imamiya Jinja as being that one was to the east and one to the west of a major road in Kyōto known as Horikawa, which runs from south to north. This gives a feeling of comprehensiveness or inclusiveness. Evidently, with similar reasoning, almost any shrines could be added to any pilgrimage series. An underlying motive is presumably that these two shrines also would like to participate in the business, especially at New Year.

We see here therefore a combination of competition and cooperation between the shrines. In the main, an appeal is made to the idea that one can somehow maximise benefit by visiting more than one shrine, indeed several. At the same time, there are only Shintō shrines in these groups, and this leads to a gentle emphasis on the Shintō view of the world.

By contrast the Shichifukujin remain entirely in the realm of the transactions of primal religion. The Shintō linkages seem to lead into a slightly more specialised consciousness The paper on which the seals are to be stamped is provided in a large envelope, which bears the following text: “Kyōto Sixteen Shrines Seal Pilgrimage New Year Shrine Visit”. In the refreshing spirit with which we meet the New Year, taking this paper for the seals with us as we go round to worship at the sixteen shrines, we pray that we may receive the virtues of each one of the great kami for body and soul alike. When this paper for the seals of the pilgrimage to the sixteen shrines is completed it will serve as a protection for everybody for the whole year, so please pay reverence to it carefully.” The implication of this is that the completed paper should be kept in a respected place at home e.g. on the house-altar (kamidana), so that prayers may be said before it throughout the year.

Stamp books proving completion of pilgrimages can be offered up on the kamidana to have one’s merit recognised by the kami

Nippon Kaigi connections

October 7, 2018 / John D. / 0 Comments

The new edition of the Asia-Pacific Journal contains an overview of the recent books about the influential rightwing group, Nippon Kaigi, which Green Shinto has written about previously because of its close involvement with official circles in Jinja Honcho (Association of Shrines). (For more about Nippon Kaigi’s aims, see here.)

The piece is titled:

Dissecting the Wave of Books on Nippon Kaigi, the Rightwing Mass Movement that Threatens Japan’s Future

In this respect one book is of particular interest, Nippon Kaigi to Jinja Honcho.

Nogawa Motokazu comments: ‘Most of the books provide a common understanding of Nippon Kaigi’s historical origins. It is symbolic that the title of the series written for Asahi shimbun, which became the basis for Fujiu Akira’s Dokyumento Nippon Kaigi [Document Nippon Kaigi] (Chikuma shobō 2017), the latest among all the books in the boom, was “Nippon Kaigi o Tadotte” [Tracing the Path of Nippon Kaigi] (November 6-21, 2016).

Authors don’t generally disagree about Nippon Kaigi’s historical background; I think they share a common understanding. For instance, they all say that a major moment in the establishment of Nippon Kaigi was the reign-name legalization movement. Although, in Nippon Kaigi no Kenkyū [A Study of Nippon Kaigi] (Fusōsha 2016),Mr. Sugano says “the movement for legislating the reign-name system was the beginning of everything”, he also says “the origin of Nippon Kaigi lay in its failure to pass the ‘Bill for the establishment of state support of Yasukuni Shrine’ [Yasukuni Jinja Kokka Goji Hōan].

I think what divides authors are their views on the source and extent of Nippon Kaigi’s influence and its source of funding. The Sugano book says that the Association of Shinto Shrines, which is often seen as Nippon Kaigi’s funder, is not so important. In chapter 5, titled “A Crowd of People” (Ichigun no Hitobito), he emphasizes the administrative skills of Nihon Seinen Kyōgikai (Nisseikyō) [Japan Youth Council], a group organized by former members of the right wing student movements, many of whom are former members of Seichō-no-Ie.

On the other hand, Yamazaki Masahiro in his Nippon Kaigi: Senzen Kaiki eno Jōnen [Nippon Kaigi: Passions to Return to Prewar Japan] (Shūeisha 2016) regards the Association of Shinto Shrines as crucial. Aoki Osamu’s Nippon Kaigi no Shōtai [Nippon Kaigi’s True Colors] (Heibonsha 2016) appears to be somewhere in between. Although Nippon Kaigi to Jinja Honchō [Nippon Kaigi and Association of Shinto Shrines] edited by Narusawa Muneo has “the Association of Shinto Shrines” in its title, Narusawa’s own chapter is titled “Nippon Kaigi to Shūkyō Uyoku” [Nippon Kaigi and the Religious Rightwing], which looks not only at the association but also at other conservative religious groups.

I think that we should neither overestimate nor underestimate the Association of Shinto Shrines. Certainly it sounds like a giant organization when we hear that there are 80,000 shrines in Japan. But in reality there are only about 20,000 so-called shinto priests. In other words, most of the shrines do not have full-time priests. Therefore, it clearly is an exaggeration to say that 80,000 shrines are mobilized in the movement. On the other hand, wealthy shrines hold significant power when we include their accumulated assets, despite their limited numbers. These issues need more research.’

The Akha spirit gate

September 17, 2018 / John D. / 0 Comments

Thanks to Green Shinto reader, Daniel Oshima, for bringing to our attention the religion of the Akha people who originated from the western part of China (probably Yunnan) but have migrated to Thailand and Burma in recent times. According to Wikipedia, their religion called zahv “is often described as a mixture of animism and ancestor worship that emphasizes the Akha connection with the land and their place in the natural world and cycles.”

Akhas believe that spirits and people were born of the same mother and lived together until a quarrel led to their separation, upon which spirits went into the forest and people remained in the villages. Since then, Akha believe that the evil spirits have caused illness and other unwelcome disruptions. They use spirit gates to keep them out.

The Akha spirit-gates are the equivalent of Japanese torii. Carved birds enable flight to the gods so that messages can be delivered (presumably in times of emergency, or in thanks for being spared disaster). This recalls the origin of torii as ‘bird’s roosts’ (tori-i). Human figures are carved on the gate, which signify vitality and fertility. (Coupling and sex are indicators of the life-force, which overcome decay and the destructive.)

Other similarities have to do with the renewal of the gates each year, for refreshing is such an important part of Shinto also. (Rebirth is built into the annual cycle, and as a nature religion the lesson is taken to heart.) Moreover, purity of the spirit world and the pollution inherent in the material world are a vital part of animist thinking, and in Akha terms the gates represent purity in defiance of the evil spirits outside. Human touch despoils the gates, which can only be restored to purity by proper ritual and sacrifice.

The small Akha hilltribe thus provide a great example of how similar ideas pervade the shamanic religions across south-east Asia. Particular practices differ of course from place to place as they become embedded in distinctive cultures. This makes each of them ‘unique’ though what they share in common is of far greater substance than what separates them. In this sense one could say that the gate that protects the Akha village is in a deep Jungian sense much the same as the torii that stands before Shinto shrines.

The torii reexamined

September 15, 2018 / John D. / 2 Comments

The famous torii tunnel at Fushimi beckons the visitor ever further into the other world

There’s nothing so evocative of Japan as the torii. The stylised gateway is a thing of beauty in itself, but it’s also a symbolic opening that suggests entrance into a different realm. It’s not intended to keep anyone out, and it’s not intended to prevent ingress. Typical of Japanese aesthetics, it frames emptiness – an invisible gate for invisible spirits. The marker divides the sacred from the profane, beckoning the visitor to enter into a special realm. It’s impossible to resist the feeling of being drawn into a different dimension, for it marks the point where this world and the spirit world abut one another. Some say that passing between the pillars is a form of purification in itself, as if there’s a spiritual charge running between them.

Passing between posts is reminiscent of our first entry into the world, and calls us back home as it were by inviting us to seek re-entry into the womb. In casting off the cares of our material world, we return to that garden of Eden before we attained consciousness and self-awareness. We become children – children of the kami.

If you took an aerial photograph of a typical shrine and looked at the layout, you’d see the distinct shape of a uterus. From the vulvic entrance represented by the torii runs a pathway through the woods to a womb-like opening in which stand the shrine buildings. Within that womb is a vertical dimension from which the kami descend as agents of the life-force. Yin and yang are symbolised in the open and closed mouths of the pair of guardian creatures, and the five elements conspire to produce a harmonious whole – wood in the shrine buildings; air in the freshness of the woods; earth in the ground below; fire in the flame that lights the lanterns; running water in the temizuya, and metal in the dragon that feeds it.

Here in the creation of a sacred realm is where spiritual and material worlds come together. The visitors proceed along a horizontal plane, the kami descends unseen on a vertical axis. Refreshed by the encounter, the visitor returns to the world ostensibly the same but reborn in spirit. What better way to mark this magical encounter than with a torii. There is pure nothingness, yet the outer form marks an inner transformation.

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For a piece about the origins of the torii, please see here. There’s more on the subject, with reference to a Kansai Scene article, on this page.

Imperial tombs

September 11, 2018 / John D. / 0 Comments

Ancient burial mounds are found all around Kansai, though like this one near Sakurai known as Hashihaka it’s often unclear as to who exactly is buried there.

The scholar Takagi Hiroshi writes that: “After the Meiji Restoration, an idea of the everlasting and unbroken single line of emperors was created, and at the same time, closely related to that idea, imperial mausoleums were invented anew. The latter functioned as a mythical device to enable the continuation of the modern imperial system, by visualizing the single line from the myth of Amaterasu’s grandson’s descending from heaven to earth, through all the emperors in history to the current one.” (Kindai tennō-sei to koto, p.177)

Kagura theatre featuring Ninigi no mikoto

Already before the Meiji Restoration, a grave for legendary Emperor Jimmu had been located in 1863, though historians doubt any such person existed. After the Restoration in 1874, even more astonishingly the burial sites of the three semi-divine generations prior to Jimmu were said to have been identified – that of Ninigi, who according to myth descended from heaven, together with his son and grandson.

Subsequently mounds were specified for many other emperors, such as the thirty-second emperor Sushun (in 1876), for the thirty-ninth emperor Kōbun (1877), the second emperor Suizei (1878), and the fiftieth emperor Kanmu (1880). In 1878, the administration of the burial mounds was transferred from the Home Ministry to the Imperial Household Ministry.

When the latter issued the list of the imperial mausoleums in 1880, the list stated that tombs of thirteen emperors were not identified, but nine years later before the promulgation of the Constitution of the Empire of Japan in 1889 the whole long list of imperial ancestors had been identified except for one, that of the ninety-eighth emperor Chōkei. Because of the lack of historical sources, it was difficult to specify his tomb, though there were many candidates. Finally in 1944 during the midst of the war, it was decided to clear up the issue by settling on a site in Kyoto.

Kammu’s tomb was ‘discovered’ in 1880 and is now part of Kyoto’s kami presence

Post World War Two
After World War II, the Imperial Household Ministry was restructured as the Imperial Household Agency, which now has management and control of imperial mausoleums. On the basis of ‘preservation of sacred sites’, free scholarly investigation of burial mounds is banned, for as ancestral tombs they are held to be inviolable. Remarkably, the Agency has designated no fewer than 895 sites from Yamagata to Kagoshima as imperial mausoleums and tombs, meaning that they are all off-limits to archaeologists. (188 burial mounds are designated as senior members of the Imperial family.) It has given rise to the often voiced suspicion that the authorities are frightened of finding the graves reveal Korean ties, which would confirm the provenance of the imperial family. (Scroll down to the bottom of this page for more about this.)

Recently a World Heritage nomination was made for the “Ancient Tumulus Cluster in Mozu-Furuichi”, which may shed an interesting light on the problem, for a number of imperial mausoleums are included in the application. Which side of the argument will Unesco favour?

Daisen mound, also known as Nintoku’s tomb, at Sakai near Osaka. It’s the largest burial mound in Japan, and the largest in terms of ground size in the world. (Photo courtesy Japan Times)

Previously the organisation has shown great sympathy with Shinto traditions in accepting the men-only rule for the Ōmine Shugendo site, allowing Shimogamo Shrine to cut down part of its ancient woodland, and agreeing to a ban on entry to the sacred island of Okinoshima (part of Munakata Taisha).

A major item in the World Heritage application is the so-called Nintoku’s tomb, one of the three largest in the world together with the Great Pyramid in Egypt and the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in China (Nintoku’s is the largest if measured by surface area alone).

Nintoku was the 16th emperor in the official line of succession, thought to have died in the early fifth century. According to Wikipedia, “Built in the middle of the 5th century by an estimated 2,000 men working daily for almost 16 years, the Nintoku tumulus, at 486 meters long and with a mound 35 meters high, is twice as long as the base of the famous Great Pyramid of Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops) in Giza.”

Archaeologists however disagree with the attribution to Nintoku from the evidence that is available and refer to it instead as the Daisen Mound (c.400). In fact, the Boston Museum of Arts holds artifacts excavated from the site after a storm. It’s certainly one of the wonders of the world, and walking around its immense perimeter makes one aware of the size, though sadly part of the route is swallowed up by urban sprawl.

When imperial myth comes up against archaeological research, I wonder which side Unesco will choose. Will the Imperial Household Agency still be allowed to put up signs advertising the mound as Nintoku’s tomb? Or will it get the more correct and objective appellation of Daisen Mound?

It is difficult to know what pressure will be applied behind the scenes by Japan, whose financial contributions have been well rewarded in recent years by a steady stream of new World Heritage Sites. Like the issue of whaling, there is often more at stake than what is evident on the surface. At the core of both these contentious matters is a deep concern about Japan’s heritage and its sense of identity.

Entrance to the ‘Nintoku burial mound’ in Sakai, Osaka, considered the third biggest burial site in the world after the Great Pyramid in Egypt and the tomb of Emperor Qin in China.

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For the official World Heritage application, see here.

For an article about the possible controversy that may arise in the World Heritage application, see this piece by Eric Johnston in the Japan Times.

Thanks to Green Shinto reader John Hallam for pointing out this interesting comment from the Japanese Archaeology website, on the Kofun Culture page:

“There is a myth around that this refusal is because the Imperial Household Agency, and thus the emperor and his family, will discover that the Japanese imperial line is Korean in origin. But the fact that some of the Great Clans around the imperial line and providing wives and mothers for the emperors were descendents from Korean immigrants is clear in the Nihon Shoki and has never been censored from the history books. And there are a lot of people in Japan and in the world who would refuse to let archaeologists or anyone else dig up the graves of their ancestors, especially in a country where none of the archaeological organizations has a code of ethics.

However, the facts are much more complicated that this. The Imperial Household Agency has been doing some excavation work on the designated tombs, in conjunction with maintenance work, and recently they have let a select few archaeologists join in the work. And some tombs designated as imperial tombs have been excavated in the past. Nintoku’s tomb is one of these.

There also are major problems with the designation of kofun mound tombs as imperial tombs. During the period of mound tomb building, no one kept records of who was buried in which tombs. When the first histories of Japan were compiled in the early 8th century, the memory of these tombs was already lost and the writers had to guess. Then nothing more was done for over 1,000 years, until efforts were made in the late Edo and early Meiji periods to determine which mounds were imperial tombs. Some of these designations are now known to be wrong and a large portion of the others are suspect.

If archaeologists have not already accidently excavated an imperial tomb, sooner or later they will, unless all kofun mound tombs are investigated and far more reliable designations of the imperial tombs are made. In fact, only 2 of the mound tombs are generally agreed to be designated correctly, the tombs of Emperor Temmu and Tenji.”

Baikal and Back 7: Shamanic world

September 3, 2018 / John D. / 0 Comments

Sea and sacred mountain (courtesy Cultural Affairs Agency/Kyodo)

The shaman is a figure of authority who is not only guardian of the clan history but a master of ritual, healing and divination. This derives from the ability to communicate with ancestral spirits, which preside over descendants, sometimes acting in a protective manner but if dissatisfied causing havoc, illness and unrest. Seeking harmony in place of disorder is the task of the shaman, achieved through such techniques as trance, ritual and dream interpretation.

Thanks to their privileged access to the spirit world, the shamans are able to pronounce on matters of physical and mental well-being, as well as see into the past and future. In Siberia vodka facilitates the process, opening up channels of communication and facilitating bonding with the other world. More than a means of intoxication, it is an agent of purification that clears away impurities that obscure clarity of vision. The ‘little water’ is vital to a healthy life.

Model of an ancient Korean shaman

In some shamanic cultures, drugs are used to induce altered consciousness, opening up the ‘doors of perception’. In Shinto though rice wine is the preferred option, and at Japan’s wilder festivals huge quantities of omiki [sacred saké] are consumed by participants as they ‘break on through to the other side’. Becoming one with the spirits and with fellow participants is the name of the game. The sipping of saké at shrine rituals is the formal legacy of such Bacchanalian rites.

In shamanic cultures, the spirits of the dead often became identified with local mountains. Since bodies were left on mountainsides or behind rocks, their spirits were absorbed into the landscape. A similar notion underlies the practice of visiting graves to pay respects to the dead, as if the essence of a person remains with their physical remains. One can see how easily this would have prompted in ancient people the idea of ancestral spirits becoming spirits of place. And if rocks and mountains could contain spirits, then so could trees, streams and waterfalls.

As in China, Japanese emperors and other high figures were traditionally placed in burial mounds, accompanied by all the goods and precious objects that they might possess. Clans living nearby looked on the spirit in the mound as a guardian deity, and in this way the clan had a real sense of belonging to the land. In death members of the clan too would literally become part of the same territory, unified with the rest of the clan. Even now, when modernity has led to mobility, there is a strong tie among Japanese to their ujigami, or clan shrine. Most of these shrines lie within the protective shadow of a mountain, whose deity looks after those in the valley below. Mountains are our guardians. Mountains are the shaman’s friend.

Caitlin Stronell serving ‘omiki’ (sacred saké) at Asakawa Konpira

Baikal and Back 6: Rocks

August 28, 2018 / John D. / 3 Comments

Hawk rock

My guide in Busan, Ryu Dong-il, was warm and sensitive to a tourist’s viewpoint. By the end of the day I’d got to know about his family, hobbies and a whole lot about Korean culture. The son of an illiterate dock worker, he had got his first job at twelve, paid for his own schooling and left to become an engine driver.

For years he’d combined driving trains with his pastime of rock-climbing, and the pictures he showed me was the stuff of nightmares. What on earth would move a human to even want to do such a thing? ‘It makes me feel alive,‘ he told me. ‘It makes me comfortable.’ Comfortable?! Short of being tortured, clinging to a cliff was as far from comfort as I could imagine.

Ryu told me of a close friend with whom he used to go climbing. Halfway up a rock face, his friend had suddenly frozen motionless. Asked what was wrong, he did not reply but started to descend. His eyes were ablaze, and the very next day he applied to be a monk. It had been twenty years ago, and though Ryu had often visited the small temple where his friend lived, he had never learnt what exactly happened that day. Clearly it had something to do with the power of the rocks. ‘Now he lives a simple life. He’s poor, but he has a purity in his eyes. You feel that he has a detachment from life,’ said Ryu. ‘He’s free.’

‘And how about you?’ I asked. It turned out Ryu too had had an unusual experience. ‘It was very special,‘ he said. ‘I was lying on a giant rock, taking a rest after a difficult climb, when I felt as if I was floating. I lost control of my body, couldn’t move, yet there was something pleasant about it as if I’d entered a realm of weightlessness. Since then I never had a feeling like that again. Even though I tried sometimes lying down on rocks, but never that same feeling. I think it was something to do with that particular rock. Each rock is different.’

Rocks are known to have different physical properties. Some have a powerful magnetic field, granite gives off radiation, and the blue stones of Stonehenge may well have been dragged all the way from Wales because they had special healing properties. There are rocks of worship, rocks of transcendence, rocks that convey authority and rocks conducive to contemplation. They were seen by the ancients as manifestations of a living Earth, and they served as vessels for otherworldly spirits. With their rockhard solidity, they represented the eternal and the permanent. This stood in contrast to the temporary world of vegetative matter to which humans belong.

Rocks and roots. As a land of mountains, I couldn’t help feeling Korea had a lot to teach.