Tag: Amaterasu (Page 1 of 2)

Amaterasu’s gender

January 25, 2022 / John D. / 2 Comments

Amaterasu, sun goddess and putative ancestor of the present emperor

I have long been intrigued by the gender of Amaterasu because I grew up believing it was a matter of common sense that the sun was male and the earth female. The hot and active sun sends out rays, which like fructifying sperm fertilise the female into producing offspring. Hence the epithet Mother Earth and her depiction as a pregnant Earth Mother.

It was a surprise therefore to find that the sun in Japan was female and ancestress to the emperor. This went along with a male moon, which was even odder for if anything seems to embody yin and feminine attributes you would imagine it to be the moon.

From my readings I learnt that the sun as female was by no means unique to Japan. I also learnt from Mark Teeuwen in a talk to Writers in Kyoto that Amaterasu might well have started as male. Here is what I wrote in a previous posting:

“The shrine dates back to the late seventh century when an angry deity named Amateru (sic) disrupted the imperial household and was ejected, ending up at Ise. Mark T. believes that at this time the deity was male, and that it was only under the influence of Empress Jito (r.686-697) that the deity was feminised by Kojiki mythologisers in her honour (there are parallels between Amaterasu’s son and grandson with those of Jito).”

Now I have chanced upon a new angle on the matter, which comes from the Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture. Much of early Shinto came to Japan through Korea, and probably the whole Yamato imperial line, so it is interesting to see in this folk tale some gender shifting. Here follows an excerpt from the encyclopedia, topical because this is the year of the tiger!

A tiger ate up an old mother returning home after providing labor at a rich household, and after disguising himself with the mother’s clothes and headwrap, went to the home where the mother’s son and daughter were waiting and asked them to open the door. The brother and sister peeked out and realizing that it was a tiger, they ran out through the back door and climbed up a tree. The tiger climbed the tree after them and the brother and sister prayed to the heavens, upon which a metal chain was sent down for them and they climbed up to become the sun and the moon. The tiger tried to come after them on a crumbling straw rope, which broke and the tiger fell on a sorghum field and died. The heavens first assigned the brother as the sun and the sister as the moon, but the sister was afraid of the dark and their roles were switched. The sister, shy of all the people looking up during the day, illuminates with intense light.

Of particular interest are the variations of the tale (see here). The commentary notes that, ‘The variations seem to have been based on the instinct to adhere to the conventional association of the male with the yang energy and the sun.’ Interesting to see the ancients had the same reservations as myself!

I had a Japanese colleague once, a very bright lady, who simply assumed Amaterasu was male and was surprised to hear that she was worshipped as a female. As we move into an era of ‘fluid gender’ and debates about trans- and cis-, perhaps it is altogether appropriate for our time that Amaterasu be ascribed a role in both /all genders. Much like Inari, indeed!

A statue of Inari as fertile fermale. The deity is also sometimes portrayed as a wise old man. (near Fushimi Inari in Kyoto)

Thanks to Jonathan Swire, we also have input from Basil Hall Chamberlain’s collection of Ainu folk tales, which features a prudish Sun Goddess and a different kind of crossover, from night to day

Formerly it was the female luminary that came out at night. But she was so greatly shocked at the immoralities which she saw going on out of doors among the grass, that she exchanged with the male luminary, who, being a man, did not care so much. So now the sun is a female deity, and the moon is a male deity. But surely the sun must be often shocked at what she sees going on even in the day-time, when the young people are in the open among the grass.—(Written down from memory. Told by Ishanashte, November, 1886.)

Birth of Japan (film)

March 30, 2021 / John D. / 0 Comments

Izanagi and Izanami stir the primordial stew to create a place on which to descend

Thanks to Green Shinto reader, Aaron Carson, for drawing our attention to a 1959 film of Japanese mythology which is available with English subtitles at https://archive.org/details/l35300610. Though the film is called The Three Treasures in English, it’s titled Nippon Tanjo in Japanese – Birth of Japan.

The film is over three hours, with an intermission roughly halfway, indicative of the blockbuster Hollywood style typical of its time. (The director, Hiroshi Inagaki , won an Oscar a few years before for Samurai: Musashi Miyamoto in 1954.) Starring in the film are Toshiro Mifune and Setsuko Hara.

For anyone familiar with or interested in Japanese mythology it’s an engrossing three hours, if only to see how the events in Kojiki and Nihon Shoki get interpreted. You can sense the Hollywood influence in the dramatic nature of the music, the epic scale, the set pieces, the bravado overacting, and the beautiful females. Perhaps the old fashioned nature is why it only rates 6.6 on IMDb.

The film begins with Izanagi and Izanami creating Japan’s “eight islands”. There’s an Adam and Eve touch to the scene. The film then switches to the tale of the heroic Yamato Takeru, one of the sons of the emperor, and along the way there are flashbacks to cover the Amaterasu Rock Cave myth and the killing of the Orochi monster by Susanoo no mikoto.

Susanoo no mikoto giving his sister Amaterasu a whole lot of grief

Yamato hero
Yamato Takeru is a Japanese folk hero, noted for his bravery, who may have lived in the 2nd century. His tomb at Ise is known as the Mausoleum of the White Plover, which is how his spirit rose up from his body following his death. He was supposedly one of three sons of Emperor Keikō (12th in line from Emperor Jimmu).

Yamato Takeru’s relationship with his father is problematic and complicated by the intrigue of courtiers who wish to be rid of hm. He is sent first to Izumo, then to lead a campaign against Kumaso warriors in Kyushu, and as soon as he returns he is dispatched again to fight armies in the east.

The heroic status of Yamato Takeru rests on his military success in expanding the territory of the Yamato court. He subdued the unruly Kumaso warriors by disguising himself as a woman and killing them while they were drunk (not the only occasion in Japanese history when this trick was played). He confides in his aunt, high priestess of Ise, about the problems with his father, and she gives him the miraculous sword Kusanagi which Susanoo no mikoto had taken from the tale of the Orochi eight-headed monster.

The sword’s magical power is seen in a famous incident when he is able to cut away the burning grass of a fire set all around him by his enemies. However, when he leaves his sword behind, his adventures come to an end on the plains of Tagi, where he is stricken with illness. This has led to comparisons with Excalibur and the tale of King Arthur.

Yamato Takeru’s first meeting with the miko he later marries

Love story…
When Yamato Takeru falls in love and marries a princess called Oto Tachibana, there is the suggestion of a forbidden love. This comes to the fore when he is returning from a military campaign against the ‘barbarians’, and the ships bearing his retinue cross Tokyo Bay. A huge storm threatens to sink the ships and drown everyone. Desperate to save her husband, and convinced the kami are angry with her, Oto Tachibana sacrifices herself by jumping into the sea and is drowned, thereby saving the life of Yamato Takeru.

Court of the weaving goddess, Amaterasu Okami

Susanoo no mikoto takes the sword from the tail of the Orochi monster and wins the love of Kushinada-hime

Yamato Takeru is told on his return to go off and fight again

Surrounded by fire, Yamato Takeru resorts to magic provided by the Ise high priestess

Yamato Takeru’s boats enjoy the peace before the storm while crossing Tokyo Bay.

Emperor’s night with Amaterasu

November 11, 2019 / John D. / 0 Comments

Symbolic night with ‘goddess’ to wrap up emperor’s accession rites

By Elaine Lies TOKYO © (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019.
As published in Japan Today Nov 11, 2019

On Thursday evening, Emperor Naruhito will dress in pure white robes and be ushered into a dark wooden hall for his last major enthronement rite: spending the night with a “goddess.” Centered on Amaterasu Omikami, the sun goddess from whom conservatives believe the emperor has descended, the Daijosai is the most overtly religious ceremony of the emperor’s accession rituals after his father Akihito’s abdication.

Scholars and the government say it consists of a feast, rather than, as has been persistently rumored, conjugal relations with the goddess. Although Naruhito’s grandfather Hirohito, in whose name soldiers fought World War Two, was later stripped of his divinity, the ritual continues.

That has prompted anger – and lawsuits – from critics who say it smacks of the militaristic past and violates the constitutional separation of religion and state, as the government pays the cost of 2.7 billion yen.

WHAT HAPPENS?
At about 7 p.m., Naruhito enters a specially-built shrine compound by firelight, disappearing behind white curtains. In a dimly-lit room he kneels by piled straw mats draped in white, said to be a resting place for the goddess, as two shrine maidens bring in offerings of food, from rice to abalone, for Naruhito to use in filling 32 plates made from oak leaves.

Then he bows and prays for peace for the Japanese people before eating rice, millet and rice wine “with” the goddess.The entire ritual is repeated in another room, ending at about 3 a.m.

John Breen in 2011, researcher at Kyoto’s Nichibunken

Long a secret, the ceremony was re-enacted this year by NHK public television, an unprecedented move scholars say may have been a government initiative to dispel rumors.”There is a bed, there is a coverlet, and the emperor keeps his distance from it,” said John Breen of Kyoto’s International Research Center for Japanese Studies, adding that de-mystifying the ceremony could be a government defense.

“Kingmaking is a sacred business, it’s transforming a man or a woman into something other than a man or a woman,” he said, pointing to mystical elements in Britain’s coronation functions. “So the Japanese government’s denial that there’s anything mystical to it is bizarre, but the purpose is pretty clear – it’s to fend off accusations there’s something unconstitutional going on.”

HOW ANCIENT IS THE TRADITION?
Believed to have started in the 700s and observed for about 700 years, the ritual was then interrupted for nearly three centuries, a gap that Breen said led to the loss of much of its original meaning.

Although believed to have initially been one of the less important enthronement rites, the ceremony gained status and its current form from 1868, as Japan began to turn itself into a modern nation-state, unified under the emperor.

WHAT IS THE FUNDING CONTROVERSY?
At a news conference, the emperor’s younger brother, Crown Prince Akishino, wondered if it was “appropriate” to use public money, suggesting instead the private funds of the imperial family, which would necessitate a far smaller ceremony.

But Koichi Shin, the head of a group of 300 people suing the government to halt the ritual, and demand damages of 10,000 yen each for “pain and suffering”, says that would still not be satisfactory, as the private funds are still tax money.

With part of one lawsuit thrown out by the Supreme Court and another set for hearing after the rite, the court battle is mostly symbolic, as concern over nationalism and the emperor fades.

At then Emperor Akihito’s accession in 1990, protests were louder and bigger, including rocket attacks ahead of some of the rituals, while 1,700 people sued amid harsh media coverage.

“Emperor Hirohito was responsible for the war, but Akihito has done a lot to soften the family’s image,” said Shin, a 60-year-old office worker. “But I think showing these ceremonies on television solidifies the idea of the emperor as religion.”

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For those who wish to read in detail about the sacred space in Daijosai and its connection with Ise Jingu’s twenty year renewal, please see this article by Gunther Niitschke.

Myth Understanding

June 8, 2019 / John D. / 1 Comment

Our friend, the scholar Robert Wittkamp, has posted an illuminating paper on academia.edu posing the question, ‘Why does Nihon Shoki possess two books with myths but Kojiki only one’? (Click here to see the original paper. Last year he published a longer work on the subject in German: Robert F. Wittkamp, Arbeit am Text: Zur postmodernen Erforschung der Kojiki-Mythen, Gosenberg: Ostasienverlag 2018.)

Kagura featuring Ninigi no mikoto, who first descended from heaven to Japan

My initial reaction to Robert’s question was that the answer must be because Nihon Shoki (720) is a historical record of episodes with variant readings, whereas Kojiki (712) is a slimmed down propaganda piece to bolster the mythological roots of the imperial family. The former would obviously be longer than the latter.

However, Robert’s paper answers the question in a much more layered and informed manner. He begins by dividing the myths into two main groups: the southern line from South China, Polynesia and the Pacific, as against the Northern Line from Siberia, Korea and North China.

The southern line is horizontal and concerns the kuni tsu kami who inhabited Japan in early Yayoi times. Their origins lay overseas, hence there are sea myths with paradise somewhere beyond the horizon (one can read about them in Carmen Blacker’s Catalpa Bow).

The northern line, however, is vertical in orientation, with descent from ‘heaven’ (i.e. Korea) by ama tsu kami. This type of myth has roots in Siberian shamanism and looks upwards or downwards to origins. They are more recent in time, arriving as conquerors. To my surprise, Robert suggests this occurred in the fourth century when there was upheaval on the continent with sixteen kingdoms in northern China and a request by Paekche to help fight Koguryeo. (I would have presumed it happened much earlier than that, with the coming of the new Yayoi civilisation in the centuries around year 0.)

Chamberlain’s translation of The Kojiki was the first to open up the stories of Japanese mythology

As Robert notes, important to an understanding of Japan’s myths is the situation of the rulers who ordered their compilation (Tenmu and Jito). They ruled at a time before the title of tenno (emperor) was used and they aspired to greater authority, being dependent on the support of powerful families and feudal clans. (Though Robert doesn’t mention this, Temmu was a usurper and therefore on shaky ground in terms of legitimacy.) By showing ancestral alliances and subordination in the past, it was hoped that the myths would bolster the standing of the rulers.

A key episode in all this is the episode in the myths known as Tenson Korin, when the heavenly kami descended onto Japan. There exist six different versions of this event – one in Kojiki, the main version in Nihon Shoki togetther with four different variants.

Today it is generally assumed that Amaterasu gives the order to her grandson Ninigi-no-mikoto to spread the benefits of their civilisation to earth (a colonial rationale still used today by powerful countries to invade the weak). However, as Robert points out, three of the six extant versions feature Takami Musuhi as issuing the command (Nihon Shoki main version, plus variant 4 and 6). In these three versions it is Takami Musuhi who is the great ancestor of the imperial line. The names of descendants are different. (The usual reading is Takami Musubi, but Robert who is an expert in early Japanese texts prefers Musuhi.)

Ame no Uzume whose dance drew a curious Amaterasu from her cave

According to Robert, “Kojiki adds the elements of the two lines together. Consequently it can be described aa ‘ntegration type'”. Later it integrates too the Ise myths into the Amaterasu theme to make one overall narrative, fixing her as the great ancestral spirit. An intriguing conclusion to be drawn from this is that Kojiki may well have been a later compilation than Nihon Shoki, even though it was published eight years earlier.

The question about why Nihon Shoki has two books and Kojiki only one still remains, however. Here Robert suggests that the answer has to do with Nihon Shoki drawing a difference between the Takami Musuhi line in Book One and the Amaterasu line of Book Two. Kojiki on the other hand “tries to connect them and to create a single and coherent narrative.”

At the same time Kojiki puts much greater stress on promoting ties with distant clans away from the capital. The Izumo myths are an example. Robert goes into detailed statistics about the difference between the ancestral groups mentioned in the two books, and his conclusion is that, ‘The Kojiki puts much weight on the powerful groups around Yamato and demotes the muraji and banzo groups close to the Court”.

And here, brilliantly, Robert solves one of the most intriguing puzzles about the myths: why for many long centuries was the Kojik almost totally forgotten (interest was only revived by the historical work of the Kokugaku scholars in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries)?

The answer Robert suggests is that the Fujiwara clan, who rose to dominance after the publication of the myths, did not care for their relatively lowly level played by their ancestors in the myths. The book was therefore put to one side and neglected by nearly all save the imperial household.

The rock cave myth still continues today to play a vital role in Japanese culture and imperial legitimacy

Sacred regalia and ascension (2)

April 30, 2019 / John D. / 0 Comments

Today Emperor Akihito officially abdicated, marking the last day of the Heisei era. In Shinto terms this meant that he reported his abdication to the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu ōmikami, as the purported great ancestor of his lineage. Reporting events to ancestors is a major element in the Japanese cult of the dead, known as ancestor worship. For the occasion the emperor dresses up in the ceremonial robes of high priest and enters the sanctuary which houses a circular mirror representing the Sun Goddess.

In Shinto mythology Amaterasu presented the original (housed at Ise Shrine) to Ninigi no mikoto when he descended to earth, telling him that it contained her spirit, as if her reflection was seared into the polished bronze surface. At some stage a copy of this was made and housed in the imperial palace. As reported in the previous post, this never leaves the sanctuary. However, the other two elements in the three Sacred Regalia play a very prominent part in the ceremonies, as can be seen in the photos below.

Emperor on his way to report his abdication to the Sun Goddess, ancestor of his lineage (he’s the 125th of his line, though the first ten at least are improbable)

Emperor pays respects before entering the sanctuary

The 85 year old Akihito, having reported his abdication now looking ahead to retirement

Divested of his priestly attire, the emperor attends a civic ceremony at which he receives appreciation from the prime minister representing the nation, before delivering his final words of gratitude to the nation. Notice the two patterned cases to left and right of him, one containing the sword and the other the magatama jewel – pagan symbols from two thousand years ago.

Extract from May 1 edition of The Japan Times
Tuesday’s ceremony to mark the abdication was televised live nationwide, taking place in the Imperial Palace’s most prestigious chamber, known as the Pine Chamber — the “only hall in the Imperial Palace that has a wooden floor,” according to the Imperial Household Agency.

The ceremony involved two of the three sacred emblems of Japan’s imperial family — a sword and a jewel — being placed on a table by chamberlains, who also brought state and privy seals into the room.

Throughout the 10-minute ritual, Emperor Akihito went nowhere near touching any of the regalia — let alone handing them down to his son — reportedly to avoid the impression that he was actively declaring his intention to abdicate, a taboo gesture that could be interpreted as running counter to the Constitution, which strips the Emperor of any political power.

The rite was attended by about 300 participants, including imperial family members and heads of the legislature, the government and the judiciary, as well as state ministers and representatives from local municipalities.

Alternative Shinto (Okuninushi)

February 21, 2019 / John D. / 0 Comments

An Edo era picture of the kami of Japan gathered at Izumo for the kamiari celebration each autumn. How come they all gather at Izumo and not Ise?

“Depending on who speaks for or about it, Shinto may appear as an ancient folk tradition of personal prayers and communal festivals, as a nonreligious tradition of civic rites and moral orientations centered on the imperial house, or as a universal religion with ethical teachings.” – Jolyon B. Thomas in ‘Big Questions in the Study of Shinto’. Review of books for H-Japan, H-Net Reviews. November, 2017. The book discussed below by Yijang Zhong is entitled The Origin of Modern Shinto in Japan: The Vanquished Gods of Izumo (Bloomsbury Shinto Studies), 2016. ( Zhong is a professor at the University of Tokyo: see here.)

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Okuninushi, lord of Izumo, whose legacy may have been usurped by the Yamato lineage

Jolyon B. Thomas writes…

Zhong’s new book persuasively shows that there are many stories to tell about Shinto, and not all of them would position Amaterasu, Ise, and the imperial household at the center of Japanese public life. Rather than focusing on the mythology that prioritizes the legitimacy of the imperial house, Zhong reads past this “official” Shinto to focus on the lineage dedicated to Ōkuninushi and the Izumo Shrine (located in present-day Shimane Prefecture).

Like Nancy K. Stalker’s work on Ōmotokyō as an “alternative Shinto” in Japan’s imperial period (Prophet Motive: Deguchi Onisaburō, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions in Imperial Japan [2008]), Zhong’s book shows that modern Shinto has never just been the official cult of the Japanese state. Zhong also shows that Izumo priests were able to successfully make the claim that Ōkuninushi was the only deity in Japan unambiguously associated with “pure” Shinto and not adulterated by Buddhist influence. This claim directly challenged the primacy of Ise and the imperial deity Amaterasu, who was still understood as a manifestation of the cosmic Buddhist deity Mahavairocana.

Zhong persuasively demonstrates in chapter 2 that it was Ōkuninushi, not Amaterasu, who received the lion’s share of popular attention during that time. This was based on a doctrine strategically generated by priestly lineages serving the shrine [in Edo Period} claiming that deities gathered at Izumo in the tenth lunar month to discuss marriages (en musubi). Their decision to conflate Ōkuninushi with the fortune deity Daikoku (one of the Seven Lucky Gods, or shichifukujin) also helped to boost the deity’s popularity, providing yet another challenge to Amaterasu’s authority.

Daikoku – conflated with Okuninushi because his name has the same Chinese characters

Chapter 3 in particular is an impressive argument that shows that modern Shinto came into being in response to external pressures and that National Learning (kokugaku) was inherently a response to the influx of Catholicism, Western astronomy and calendrical practices, and incursions from Russia to the north. Zhong focuses on the figure of Hirata Atsutane (1776–1843) and his 1811 book True Pillar of the Soul, which positioned Ōkuninushi as a cosmic deity with control over death and the afterlife; the book also rendered Shinto as a native epistemology that could hold its own in competition with foreign modes of knowledge.

In Atsutane’s rendering, Shinto became an indigenous tradition associated first and foremost with the terrestrial Ōkuninushi, while the solar deity Amaterasu assumed secondary status. Hirata’s disciples and Izumo priests rushed to disseminate the new doctrine throughout Japan even as political trends were shifting toward the “restoration” of the emperor to direct rule and the concomitant elevation of the imperial cult of Amaterasu. Despite his popularity, Ōkuninushi would eventually be eclipsed by the sun goddess.

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For a more in-depth review of the dissertation on which Professor Zhong’s book is based, please see this piece by Aike Rots.

For more about Izumo as an alternative centre of Shinto, see this previous posting.

Izumo Taisha, according to some site of the oldest shrine in Japan

Mark Teeuwen on Ise Jingu

June 12, 2018 / John D. / 4 Comments

The main shrine at Ise, known as Naiku

Leading Shinto scholar Mark Teeuwen, has written several influential books on matters related to Japan’s indigenous faith. He’s known in particular for disputing the idea that there was such a thing as ‘Shinto’ in Japan’s ancient past, but that it was a later construct. His new publication, A Social History of the Ise Shrines, co-written with John Breen, has proved ground-breaking in terms of English language works on the subject. It was a great delight therefore to hear him talk last Sunday on the changes Ise has been through in its long history.

The Dutch scholar Mark Teeuwen, currently professor at the University of Oslo

First some interesting statistics. The Ise complex comprises 125 shrines. There are 120 priests (nearly ten times more than at other major shrines) and 500 auxiliary staff. The shrine owns forests as far away as Kyushu, has four museums as well as offices, educational facilities and residences, in addition to which it hosts facilities to produce rice, salt, timber etc. In short, this is a major enterprise, which moreover is committed to a twenty-year rebuilding cycle estimated to cost 57 billion yen. Small wonder that it needs substantial income, for since the end of World War Two it has been stripped of state support. It comes as little surprise then to learn that the Association of Ise Worshippers is headed by the ex-president of Toyota and that the top ranks are filled with big business magnates.Visitors to Ise may think it’s all about trees and wood, but money is a major concern!

The twenty year rebuilding cycle brings with it renewed focus and a surge of tourism. A comparison of 1993 and 2013 is instructive in this respect. Given that 9 million visitors in 2014 descended on a town of only 130,000, the management of shrine visitors and tourism is a consideration for local residents, and in 1993 much attention was given to a new motorway to the area. At the same time there were protests and even bombs against the imperial trappings and reenforcement of state ties. These were much more evident in 2013, when prime minister Shinzo Abe and eight of his cabinet ministers attended the sengyo no gi rite, in which the sacred mirror of Amaterasu is transferred from the old shrine to the new. The last time a prime minister had attended was in 1929 during the time of State Shinto, yet this won almost no attention in the mass media or from the populace at large. One wonders if it reflects political apathy, or perhaps it is simply an illustration of the drift to the right which has happened under Abe.

A Jinja Honcho campaign to go and worship at Ise

Standard descriptions of Ise like to suggest it has always been supreme and a centre of imperial worship. Mark T. however showed that this was far from the truth, and he identified six major historical periods with quite different values and business models. The shrine dates back to the late seventh century when an angry deity named Amateru (sic) disrupted the imperial household and was ejected, ending up at Ise. Mark T. believes that at this time the deity was male, and that it was only under the influence of Empress Jito (r.686-697) that the deity was feminised by Kojiki mythologisers in her honour (there are parallels between Amaterasu’s son and grandson with those of Jito).

During its subsequent history Ise took many guises. It came as a surprise to learn that at one time it was the seat of Enma, lord of the underworld, and indulgences were sold so as to avoid going to hell. At another time it was closely associated with the samurai (the court made pilgrimages to Kumano instead). Shop councils and inn keepers promoted the pilgrimage business through prayer masters called oshi, and the millions of Edo-era pilgrims who headed for the Outer Shrine were concerned with enjoyment and praying for agricultural success. There was little if any awareness of the emperor at the time, for the Tokugawa were all-powerful (and Ieyasu deified). Only with the development of the Kokugaku movement in the later Edo Period was there a revival in sentiment for the emperor.

It was the Meiji Period which brought major changes to Ise. The era is associated now with ‘the invention of tradition’, and Ise provides a striking example as it was transformed into the ancestral shrine of the emperor and given primacy in religious terms. For a start the oshi business, which had long sustained Ise, was banned. Hereditary priests were ousted and appointees installed. Fences were put up and shrines rearranged in a more rational and imperial manner. The Outer Shrine, for example whose deity was Amenonakanushi, lord of creation, was recast as sanctuary of a food deity serving Amaterasu,

Part of the rebranding was to have the emperor make personal visits to Ise as his ancestral shrine and Emperor Meiji is said to have visited four times. Far from following tradition, he was in fact starting a new ‘tradition’ for no emperor had ever visited the shrine before (Empress Jito in the eighth century is said in the Kojiki to have visited ‘Ise Province’). At the same time throughout Japan shrines were amalgamated, mirrors added, and imperial ancestors installed as kami to replace the old gods. In this way Ise came to take its present form as head of an emperor-centred ideology, and despite the change from nationalised institution to private after WW2, essentially nothing has changed. Still today most of the resources of the Association of Shrines (Jinja Honcho) go into supporting Ise’s primacy, even to the extent of passing on money from poorer shrines (some close to bankrupt).

There is no dogma in Shinto, noted Mark, though Jinja Honcho has one clear dogma: Ise is supreme.

Mark (right) putting over a point in his fact-filled overview of Ise’s many historical guises

In contrast to the solemnity nowadays, Edo-era pilgrims were bent on enjoying themselves and even took pets along, if this officially sanctioned picture is to be believed. The humorous saying, ‘You should take advantage of the Ise pilgrimage to drop in at Ise too’ shows that other matters held priority.