Tag: Izumo

Japan by Train 16: Tottori

September 15, 2022 / John D. / 0 Comments

Hakuto Shrine, where the Hare of Inaba is enshrined

My next visit was to Hakuto Shrine, notable for enshrining a white rabbit. Not Alice’s white rabbit, of course. In fact, not a rabbit at all but a hare, as the Japanese language makes no distinction between the two. The Hare of Inaba is its name, and it appears in Japan’s oldest book, the Kojiki (712).

‘Do you know the story?’ my guide asked.
‘More or less,’ I said. ‘There was a hare living on Oki Islands which came to the mainland where it was skinned and tortured by some bullies, but rescued by a younger man, who is now known as the kami, Okuninushi.’
’Oh, you know very well,’ she said. Although the story is well-known, she had made a point of learning the details to explain to her customers. ‘The hare wanted to get to the mainland,’ she continued, ‘so it challenged some sharks to see which animal had more followers.’
‘On the Oki Islands, right?’
‘Yes. The cunning hare persuaded the shark leader to line up its followers all the way to the mainland so that they could be counted, then used them as stepping stones to hop its way across the sea.’

The rest of the story reads like a moral tale of animal rigts. When the sharks realised they had been duped, they seized the hare and tore off its fur in revenge. Then along came the sons of the Izumo king on their way to court a princess, and when they came across the poor hare pleading for help, they told it to wash in the sea and let the breeze dry it off, knowing full well the salty water and wind would bring more pain. However, the youngest called Onamuchi (aka Okuninushi) took pity on the hare and after the others left told it to use fresh water and wrap itself in healing medicinal leaves. Like all good folk tales, there was a reward for the hero when the hare revealed itself as a deity and granted to Onamuchi the right to marry the princess.

The Tottori coast where the hare successfully landed after stepping on the heads of sharks

Hakuto Shrine is sited next to the beach where the hare supposedly arrived onto the mainland. A small step for the hare, a big step for mythology. The nearby Mitarashi Pond is where it supposedly purified itself., and one way of decoding the story is to see it as marking the arrival of a ‘heavenly’ (I.e. undefiled) migrant clan from Korea.

Since animals sense the unseen better than humans, they are usually regarded in Shinto as mediators between this world and the other. Here, however, the hare is the main kami of the shrine. The colouring may have played a part in this, for Inaba hares turn white in winter, and white is a signifier of purity. It is an attribute widely shared amongst the religion’s sacred animals – white foxes, white snakes, white horses, white deer, white doves.

Purity underwrites the story in another way, as washing in fresh water suggests misogi, a Shinto practice involving ritual immersion in cold water. The purpose is to refresh and renew the human spirit, ‘polluted’ through being in a material world. The striving for purity has left a mark on modern-day Japan with its emphasis on cleanliness, reflected in the tendency for white cars, in politicians who wear white gloves, and in the readiness to wear white masks.

Next to the steps leading to the Worship Hall is a statue of a youthful looking Onamuchi together with the hare, and at the shrine office white stones are on sale for tossing onto the lintel of the torii for good luck. I watched my taxi driver throw a coin into the offertory box, ring the bell and do the standard two bows, two claps and one final bow. Afterwards I asked if she had prayed, and she told me she was making a wish for the health of her family. I wondered to what she had made the wish – kami, the white hare, God, Onamuchi? All of them, she said, everything in fact. The universe in general. Wonderful, I thought. The nameless mystery that has neither shape nor substance.

The myth is enshirned in rock at Izumo Taisha, with Onamuchi in white and his nasty brothers in blood red.
Japan’s cult of the cute is evident too in the accompanying white hares,

Okuninushi and white hare at Izumo Taisha. As in other primal religions, the animal familiar mediates between the mundane and the sacred.

New book on Susanoo

January 15, 2022 / John D. / 2 Comments

For those of us interested in roots and continental connections, Susanoo is an intriguing character who initiates a whole cycle of myths in Kojiki (712). In the twentieth century propagandists seized on his estranged relationship with Amaterasu to present him as a troublesome part of “the family’ in ways spelt out below…..

by David Weiss

It is my pleasure to announce that my book, The God Susanoo and Korea in Japan’s Cultural Memory: Ancient Myths and Modern Empire has now been published by Bloomsbury in the Bloomsbury Shinto Studies Series and is available at: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/god-susanoo-and-korea-in-japans-cultural-memory-9781350271180/

For a 35% discount, enter the discount code GLR 9XLUK on the first page at checkout.

Description

This book discusses how ancient Japanese mythology was utilized during the colonial period to justify the annexation of Korea to Japan, with special focus on the god Susanoo. Described as an ambivalent figure and wanderer between the worlds, Susanoo served as a foil to set off the sun goddess, who played an important role in the modern construction of a Japanese national identity.

Susanoo inhabited a sinister otherworld, which came to be associated with colonial Korea. Imperialist ideologues were able to build on these interpretations of the Susanoo myth to depict Korea as a dreary realm at the margin of the Japanese empire that made the imperial metropole shine all the more brightly. At the same time, Susanoo was identified as the ancestor of the Korean people. Thus, the colonial subjects were ideologically incorporated into the homogeneous Japanese “family state.”

The book situates Susanoo in Japan’s cultural memory and shows how the deity, while being repeatedly transformed in order to meet the religious and ideological needs of the day, continued to symbolize the margin of Japan.

Susanoo in mythic form fighting the Orochi monster before bringing peace to Izumo

Izumo Taisha tourist tips

December 22, 2019 / John D. / 0 Comments

The following is taken from an article in Gaijinpot.

A towering torii gate at the entrance. (Photo by: かがみ～ )

Izumo style shimenawa rice rope (Photo by John Dougill)

The giant straw ropes called shimenawa that resemble anacondas coiled around a tree branch are Izumo Taisha’s most famous feature. They represent the separation between the mortal and supernatural worlds. In fact, the shimenawa at the Kagura Hall at Izumo Taisha are the largest in Japan, measuring 13 meters long and weighing five tons.

What’s with all the rabbits at Izumo Taisha?

Okuninushi and rabbit / hare (photo John Dougill)

The main worship hall, where the Shinto deity Okuninushi is enshrined, is fenced in to divide the sacred from the everyday space. Built in 1744, this hall is the tallest in Japan, at about 24 meters. But it’s what lies behind the cherished building that catches most visitors’ attention.

At the back of the hall, there’s a cluster of cute rabbit statues! The rabbits are important to this shrine because of their connection to Okuninushi. Japan’s sacred text of creation stories, the Kojiki, tells a legend about how the god rescued a white rabbit from being eaten by sharks. Delight in the different personalities, quirks, and poses of each one as you walk through the shrine grounds.

At the nearby museum you’ll find Japan’s largest collection of excavated bronze swords and bronze bells, and learn more about the history of the holy Izumo region.

A shrine dedicated to matchmaking

Pray to find your future mate. (Photo by: Jesse Ramnanansingh)

The ritual for praying at Izumo Taisha is slightly different than at other shrines around Japan. Instead of clapping twice as you usually do at a Shinto shrine, at Izumo, you clap four times—twice for yourself and twice for your current or future partner.

Many young Japanese girls come to the shrine to pray for luck finding a future husband. Okuninushi is the Shinto god of marriage and good relationships, after all.

This has made the shrine into a very popular wedding destination as well. In 2014, a member of the Japanese royal family, Princess Noriko, tied the knot here. You may spot a wedding or two during your visit if you’re lucky!

Close to the shrine is an entire street lined with restaurants and souvenir shops. Try regional specialties like Izumo soba, which is made from buckwheat seeds and served with grated daikon, nori (dried seaweed) and spring onions.

Shimane Prefecture has yet to reach tourists’ Japan bucket lists, but it’s well on its way.

Nearby Sacred Beach

Located less than a kilometer and within walking distance from Izumo Taisha Shrine is Inasanohama Beach. The beach is home to a tiny shrine called Bentenjima which rests on a large rock in the ocean. [It is on this beach that the kamiari sai takes place when all the kami of Japan arrive by sea and are taken to be housed in Izumo Taisha.]

See the mysterious Benten-jima shrine on Inasanohama beach. (Photo by mstk east)

For more about the religious significance of Izumo Taisha, please see here or here or here. Please also see the Category for Izumo in the righthand column of this page.

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

Hearn 13): Matsue Revisited

March 10, 2017 / John D. / 0 Comments

Hearn’s beloved garden, kept as it was over a hundred years ago

Some years ago I visited Lafcadio Hearn’s house in Matsue City, which is preserved just as when he lived in it. It’s an attractive former samurai house next to the moat around Matsue Castle. The garden he described in his writing is still the same, and one can appreciate the joy he must have felt in living in such harmony and closeness with nature, in such an aesthetically pleasing setting. (You can read all about the house and garden here.}

This time I wanted to explore some other places associated with Hearn to see what inspired his affinity with Shinto. Already on his journey to the Matsue area he had noticed that the region did not embrace Buddhism so tightly as other regions, meaning that it retained more of a traditional character. For Hearn it was the true Province of the Gods.

Shoko Koizumi, married to Hearn’s great grandson, at the Jozan Inari Shrine

Two of the author’s favourite shrines, Yaegaki and Kumaso, are in the countryside around Matsue, and these were reported on in an earlier post. This time I visited Hearn’s favourite Inari shrine, close to his house. Escorting me was the wife of Hearn’s great-grandson, Koizumi Shoko, and I was lucky enough to join the pair for dinner in the evening.

Hearn used to visit Jozan Inari Shrine in the castle grounds on his way to go and teach at the High School. He was particularly fond of the foxes at the shrine, especially the big stone figure in front of the shrine gate (the original is now at the Hearn Memorial Museum). In Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan he wrote:

Prayer for the good health of a child not to cry at night and be plagued by ‘bugs’

Upon almost every door there is one ofuda (charm) especially particularly likely to attract the attention of a stranger. These ofuda are from the great Inari shrine of the Castle Hill and are charms against fire. They represent, indeed, the only form of assurance against fire yet known in Matsue – so far, at least, as wooden dwellings are concerned.

Another shrine Hearn was fond of was Komori Inari Jinja, specialist in blessings for children. He was particularly interested in the drawings and prayers that were pinned up on pieces of paper. Still today you find children playing in the yard next to the shrine and prayers from mothers displayed on the outside of the building.

The last place I’d like to mention here is a temple rather than a Shinto shrine, but typically syncretic in Edo-era style. Hearn loved it, and so did I. Gessho-ji has one of the most striking atmospheres I’ve come across in Japan, enhanced by the accompanying rain and moist surfaces. In fact Hearn loved it so much he longed to be buried there, though there was little chance of that. Gessho-ji is the burial place of the Matsudaira, the local daimyo (feudal lords),

Wandering around the graveyard I mused on the use of torii in this Pure Land temple. There’s not only the oddity of the marker of sacred space in a Buddhist sect not normally friendly to Shinto tradition, but there’s the anomaly of a Shinto symbol before a grave when every book you read says that Shinto shuns death.

The Gessho-ji cemetery for the local daimyo of Matsue, with torii standing in front of a grave

One is used to torii marking the burial mounds of imperial ancestors, given their supposedly divine descent. But daimyo? These are mere mortals, who happen to have temporal power. On the other hand, if one thinks in terms of an ancestral religion and the way that family dead become kamisama as well as buddhist hotoke. The more power a person has in this world, the more powerful their spirit after death. It’s a shamanic trait, nowhere more evident than in the great Mongol deity, Ghengis Khan.

One of the main sights of Gessho-ji is the Great Tortoise that features in a folk story and which particularly took Hearn’s fancy. Just as the ghost tales of Matsue sparked his imagination, so the giant tortoise loomed large in his fancy. Animals and insects feature prominently in his writing, and his sympathy with them was tied to a belief in the oneness of all beings.

The giant tortoise is positioned in front of the sixth Matsudaira lord, and according to tradition rubbing the its head guarantees longevity. Folklore also claims that the tortoise moves at night to drink water from the pond and wanders through the city. This fascinated Hearn, who wrote a piece about how certain artistic creations had a secret nocturnal life:

But the most unpleasant customer of all this uncanny fraternity to have encountered after dark was certainly the monster tortoise of Gesshoji temple in Matsue….This stone colossus is almost seventeen feet in length and lifts its head six feet from the ground…. Fancy…this mortuary incubus staggering abroad at midnight, and its hideous attempts to swim in the neighbouring lotus-pond!

Hearn not only had a strong attachment to animals, but was something of an animal rightist. He was vehemently opposed to hunting for recreation, and his description of the torture undergone by a terrified cow in the slaughter house of Cincinnati is stomach churning. Once when he saw a cat being tortured by the side of the road, he pulled out a pistol and shot it in the direction of the perpetrator.

‘Toads, butterflys, ants, spiders, cicadas, bamboo-sprouts, and sunsets were among Papa-san’s best friends,’ said his wife Setsuko in her Reminiscences. Based on such evidence, leading scholar Sukehiro Hirakawa wrote, ‘ I believe that the principal reason for Hearn’s appeal to the Japanese derives from Hearn’s sympathetic understanding of Japanese animism.’ The strong sense of Oneness he felt was fostered in the shrines of Matsue and the environment of his own back garden.

The tokonoma in Hearn’s house, where the objects on display are changed with the seasons. The aesthetic appeal and harmony with nature were part of why Hearn fell in love with Matsue.

It was just before March 3, Dolls Day, on the day of my visit, and the hanging scroll a male and female pair beneath plum blossom.

A window shutter in town featured the Chaplin-like drawing of Hearn when he left the US for Japan in 1890, done by a commissioned illustrator who accompanied him on the journey. Hearn soon cut his ties to the magazine that had nominally (but not financially) sponsored his trip.

Jozan Inari Jinja, near Hearn’s house, was a particular favourite of his

Hearn was particularly fond of the stone fox figures at the shrine

This guardian fox figure has an unusual shimenawa neckband

The Hearn trail around Matsue features 16 places in all, including the Kodomo no Inari Jinja (Children’s Inari Shrine), where Hearn was fascinated by the prayers pinned by mothers on the side of the shrine

Dragon detail at the entrance to Kodomo no Inari Shrine

The wonderfully atmospheric Gessho-ji, where Hearn wanted to be buried

Hearn was particularly struck by this enormous creature in the graveyard of Gessho-ji, and so was I! The giant turtle features in one of the eerie tales that feature in Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan.

An Edo-era hand print of the famous sumo wrestler, Raiden

Hasegawa Yoko, deputy head of the Shusse Inari Shrine close to Ryusho-ji temple where Hearn went to see the splendid Jizo statues

Yomegashima was one of Hearn’s favourite sites in Matsue – small wonder given that it is dedicated to the ‘Goddess of Eloquence and Beauty’. It’s particularly alluring at sunset when deep reds and crimson spread over the far side of Lake Shinji (see Hearn’s description below).

A sculpture entitled The Open Mind of Lafcadio Hearn captures the sunset in a heart-mind shape, beautifully expressing the animist embrace of nature

Hearn’s description of Yomegashima in Lake Shinji (see above), with characteristic attention to the morbid legend concerning its name and origin:

The vapors have vanished, sharply revealing a beautiful little islet in the lake, lying scarcely half a mile away, – a low, narrow strip of of land with a Shinto shrine upon it, shadowed by giant pines; not pines like ours, but huge gnarled, shaggy, torturous shapes, vast-reaching like ancient oaks. Through a glass one can easily discern a torii, and before it two symbolic lions of stone (Kara-shishi), one with its head broken off, doubtless by its having been overturned and dashed about by heavy waves during some great storm. This islet is sacred to Benten, the Goddess of Eloquence and Beauty, wherefore it is called Ben-ten-no-shima. But it is more commonly called Yome-ga-shima, or ‘The Island of the Young Wife,’ by reason of a legend. It is said that it arose in one night, noiselessly as a dream, bearing up from the depths of the lake the body of a drowned woman who had been very lovely, very pious, and very unhappy. The people, deeming this a sign from heaven, consecrated the isle to Benten, and thereon built a shrine unto her, planted trees about it, set a torii before it, and made a rampart about it with great curiously-shaped stones; and there they buried the drowned woman.