One Thousand Two Hundred Rakan

 

Rakan, or Arhats, usually come in groups of 500.

Said to be the disciples of the Buddha, many temples will have a full 500 statues, but many more will have a much smaller number.

Otagi Nembutsuji, a temple outside the main part of Arashiyama near Kyoto has an amzing 1200 of them.

Even more amazing is that they were only started to be made in 1981, part of something called the Showa Rakan Carving Project.

The head priest was a sculptor, and he encouraged visitors to the temple to carve small, simple, rakan statues.

He encouraged people to freely express themselves in the carving, and so the vast majority of the carvings are quite different from each other.

What is also surprising is how quickly moss and lichen begin to grow on the statues, thanks to Japans wet climate.

Previously I posted on the temple, its history, and the other deities and statues to be seen.

Next I will post some close-up portraits of some of the most distinctive rakan.

If you are using a computer to view this you can simply click on the "rakan" tag at the bottom of the post.

If you are using a phone, tough, because many features like that are not available....

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To Sanbe Dam

 

After leaving Mononobe Shrine I head up the Shizuma River.

Then I cut north and headed over the mountains to drop into the Sanbe River Valley.

I carried on up that river ever closer to Mount Sanbe, the highest point in Iwami.

An active volcano with a height of more than 1,100 meters...

The climb gets steeper as I leave the river bank and climb up towards the top of the dam.

A fairly standard dam, unable to release water until full.

The mountainside cloaked in concrete

An earlier post on Sanbe Dam shows more concrete....

Just pass the dam is a little park and cafe, but the cafe closes at 5, so that is where I shall lay out my sleeping bag for the night.

I can't see the actual sunset, but a nice enough show as the sun went down. And so ends day 38.

The previous post was on Mononobe Shrine.

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Tenei Hachimangu

 

3rd of May, 2014, and my final stop of day 9 of my walk along the Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage was a fairly standard village shrine in Mito Onsen, in the Chugoku Mountains near Masuda.

There was no signboard, and I have been unable to unearth any information searching the web.

Plenty of small shrines within the grounds, almost certainly moved there in the early 20th century when local shrines were moved to national shrines.

Stone zuijin are not si common, and this one is quite recent.

As with most village shrines in Iwami, it is set up for annual kagura performaces...

Also unusual were the wooden masks, I suspect there is a mask-carver in the neighbourhood

The previous post in this series was on the day's walk through the remote mountains with an emphasis on wild harvesting...

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Mononobe Shrine

 

By mid-afternoon, after leaving Omori, I stopped in briefly at Mononobe Shrine, the ichinomiya of Iwami.

The primary kami is Umashimaji, said to be the ancestor of the Mononobe Clan. Behind the shrine is a tomb said to be for Umashimaji. The Mononobe were a martial and ritual clan dominant in the rise of the Yamato in Cetral Japan.

The shrine is said to have been established in 514, which fits with the time that Izumo came under the control of the Yamato. It is believed the Mononobe were established here as a check on Izumo power

The Mononobe are probably best known as the clan that fought against the introduction of Buddhism.

They were also ritualists and one of their rituals, the Chinkonsai, a spirit-pacifying ritual, is still practised today in three locations: the Imperial Palace, Isonokami Shrine in Nara, the Mononobe clan shrine, and here at Mononobe Shrine.

This was just a very quick visit, so I will cover the shrine in more detail in a later post.

However, the huge Tengu masks are worth a look....

The previous post was on the delights of Omori at Iwami Ginzan.

If you would like to subscribe by email, just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published and made public. I post new content almost everyday, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the last ten posts.