Mishima Shrine Takaoka Tosa

 

Mishima Shrine is located in Takaokacho, Tosa, at the base of the hill on which Ohenro temple 35, Kiyotakiji is found.

It shares space with an Itsukushima Shrine, though they each have their own steps.

The only history I can find is that it was rebuilt in the early 17th century.

There are numerous smaller shrines within the grounds, including a Yasaka Shrine enshrining Susano, and a Shinmei Shrine enshrining Amaterasu.

There are half a dozen komainu including several with the "Princess leia" hairstyle.

There are a lot of largish ema paintings, including one, not shown as it is too faded, registered as an Important Cultural Property.

The Mishima shrine enshrines Oyamazumi.

The Itsukushima Shrine enshrines the three Munakata Princesses, daughters of Susano.

The previous post in this series documenting the space between the temples on the Ohenro Pilgrimage was on the nearby Omirokusama Shrine.

Eifukuji Temple 57 Shikoku Ohenro Pilgrimage

 

Temple 56 is quite a small temple with Amida as its honzon. As well as the Daishi-do there is also a Konpira-do and a Yakushi-do.

Eifukuji is the 4th of a cluster of 6 pilgrimage temples in the area of Imabari, Ehime.

It is located at the base of a small mountain to the south of the city, though it used to be located on top of the mountain with views over the city.

The most noticeable thing for me when I visited at the start of my 35th day walking the pilgrimage was the Enbutsu-do, a strikingly modern building that towers over the temple compound.

Designed by architect Zai Shirakawa, it features very thick walls with angled window openings that allow for some privacy but also allow plenty of light to enter.

It is said that Kobo Daishi performed a ritual on the mountaintop in the early 9th century for peace at sea and afterwards Amida appeared and so he built a temple.

In 859 another monk was travelling from Kyushu to Kyoto with the divided spirit of Hachiman to found Iwashimizu Hachimangu. He thought the mountain here looked like the one where Iwashimizu was to be built and so founded a Hachiman Shrine alongside the temple. Both functioned as the same site.

Until 1868, that is,  when the government separated Buddhas and Kami and the temple was relocated to its current location at the foot of the hill. The shrine still stands on top.

There are some fine carvings, and I was surprised to see a Ta no Kami statue (below). The cart in the first photo was left by a 15 year-old crippled pilgrim whose leg was healed at the temple.

The previous temple was temple 56 Taisanji.

Omirokusama Shrine

 

Popular shrines will often have large numbers of objects left or donated by worshippers who either are praying for something, or giving thanks for something. Votive tablets, known as ema in Japanese, or even simple wooden torii gates like those found at many Inari shrines are common, as is leaving miniature statues.

At Omiroikusama Shrine in Tosa, Kochi you will find lots of ema, lots of torii, and literally thousands and thousands of miniature frogs.

Frog statues and figurines can be seen at quite a few temples. The word for frog, kaeru, also means "return" and so is often used a symbol meaning safe return. Such homophones are quite common in Japan as the Japanese language is composed of relatively few sounds.

However the frogs here have nothing to do with returning, rather the frogs skin reminds people of warts, and at Omiroku Shrine the tradition is that you pray here for relief from warts, and if successful then you come back and leave a small frog.

The fame of Omirokusama Shrine has spread and people from all over Japan make the journey to Shikoku to pray at the shrine and nowadays a new twist has been added as the idea that cancer is a form of internal warts has taken hold.

The origin of the shrine lies in 1899 when a local farmer dug up a sacred object of some kind. Most sources say a"shrine", but it is not clear exactly what that means.

He took it home and placed it in his storehouse. Later he and his family became plagued with warts and other skin ailments. He consulted a Shinto priest who told him the kami was upset at being moved and the man should return the "shrine" to its original spot.

This he did, and so the shrine began. The rest, as they say, is history. Incidentally, Miroku is the Japanese name for Maitreya, a Buddhist bodhisattva known as the Future Buddha.

Though tiny, this is a fascinating site to visit. Very much a creation of "folk" and having nothing to do with imperial shinto, the influence of Buddhism is also very "folk".

When walking from Tanemaji Temple, number 34 on the famous Shikoku Pilgrimage, to Kiyotakiji Temple, number 35, Omirokusama Shrine is located on the riverbank immediately after crossing the Niyodo River on Route 56. The previous post in this series exploring the sights found along the routes between the temples was on the walk to Tanemaji Temple from Wakamiya Hachimangu.

Taisanji Temple 56 Shikoku Pilgrimage

 

Taisanji, temple 56 on the Shikoku Ohenro pilgrimage, is located in the rural outskirts of Imabari in Ehime.

I  visited at the end of my 34th day on the pilgrimage. I started the day at another Taisanji Temple, number 52 in Matsuyama, but they are written with different kanji, number 52 roughly means "big mountain", whereas this one means "peace mountain".

Taisanji in Matsuyama was a major temple and I ended up doing two posts on it, one on the architecture, and a second on the art, whereas  the Taisanji here in Imabari is somewhat less interesting and fairly nondescript.

The temple was founded in 815 when Kobo Daishi visited the area. 

The area suffered repeated flooding from the nearby Soja River and so Konoba Daishi performed a ritaul on the banks and helped the villagers to construct a levee.

The honzon of the temple is a Jizo, said to be carved by Kobo Daishi himself.

In earlier times it seems to have been quite large and important, but of course was destroyed many times during conflict.

The current building seem to date back to the mid 19th century.

There is no longer a Niomon, but two fine Nio can be seen in a display structure with windows.

There are a couple of Fudo statues in the grounds and some other statues....

If you look around it is possible to find interesting things, for instance the final photo...

According to one source the temple has a tsuyado, free lodgings, often very minimal, for walking pilgrims.

The previous temple, just 3 kilometers away, was Nankobo Temple.

A Walk in Rural Kochi

 

Late November, and on day 17 of my walk around Shikoku on the Ohenro pilgrimage I have left the Wakamiya Hachimangu shrine connected to the great Shikoku warlord Chosokabe Motochika and am heading across country to Tanemaji Temple 34.

This, for me, was the essence of the pilgrimage. The pilgrimage temples supply a structure and a route, but for me it is the space between the temples, the unknown expanses of mostly rural Japan that most visitors miss. I was seeking out the shrines and histories that don't make it into the tourist brochures.

I had been doing this for years, initially exploring the area around my home, gradually going further and further afield until I knew all the back roads and what could be found. I got into a pattern of studying maps and finding all the shrines and then working out a walking route that would take me to them all.

The impetus was to learn, to try to understand all the whys, why were things the way they were. To learn about the natural environment and its ecology and how that influenced the people, and to learn the political and religious history and how that shaped the place to be in the form it is now.

The Shikoku Ohenro was my first time on a "Buddhist" pilgrimage. I figured that dressed in pilgrims garb on a well established walking route I was less likely to be stopped by the cops, something that happened far too often to me and had a depressing effect on me.

The first photo is a small, local shrine, a Kamado Shrine. There were numerous kamado shrines in the area, indicating what I was not sure. The head shrine is in Dazaifu in northern Kyushu and was established after Japan's unsuccessful invasion of the Korean peninsula in the late 7th century.

photo 2 is a heron, a fairly common bird around rivers and rice paddies. Photo 3 is a small man-made pond, vital for irrigation for rice paddies before the modern world that nowadays uses a lot of electrical pumping.

 

Photo 4 is a small park of some kind, and photo 5 a gourd water bottle hanging on a farm outbuilding. A far cry from the ubiquitous plastic water bottles of now.

Phots 6, 7, and 8, are another small, local shrine, Mori Shrine. One of the things that fascinates me is the diversity of such things as the komainu guardian statues, which nowadays are tending more and more to a homogenous, "national" style, but which historically were quite varied.

photo 8 is the Kodono River I had to cross, and the finalthree photos are of an unusual memorial below a small local shrine. It seems to be dedicated to the ascension of Hirohito in 1926 when the era name changed from Taisho to Showa. Architecturally it is curious as it looks like some kind of tomb.

The previous post in this series looking at what is between the temples on the Ohenro was Wakamiya Hachimangu Shrine.