Kochi Daijingu & Yosakoi Inari Shrine

 

Kochi Daijingu is located just outside the main gate of Kochi Castle, and within the grounds is Yosakoi Inari Shrine.

Kochi Daijingu, with its unique golden torii, is a branch of Ise Shrine, but I can not find much info on it beyond that it was established in 1873. The Inari shrine is far more popular and has more info.

There were a lot of chickens wandering around the grounds, something I have seen before at shrines, but not so very often....

The Inari Shrine was renamed Yosakoi Inari quite recently in honor of Kochi being the origin of the Yosakoi dance.

The shrine originally was in the property of the Yamauchi Clan, and was moved to Kochi when the clan sold their property in early Meiji. I believe it was originally in Kyoto as a few of the enshrined kami are specifically local Kyoto kami.

As a branch of Ise, the Daijingu enshrines Amaterasu. The chicken has been considered the messenger of Amaterasu in the same way that the fox is considered the messenger of Inari.

Consequently, there are no komainu at the shrine, just a pair of recently added chicken statues and the usual foxes.

The previous post from day 16 of my walk along the Shikoku Ohenro pilgrimage was Kochi Castle.

Ise Pilgrimage

These two draincovers are from Ise in Mie Prefecture and show pilgrims in the Edo period who descended on the shrines at Ise by their millions.

At that time, travel for commoners was restricted, but pilgrimage was about the only reason you would be allowed to travel. There were many pilgrimage sites across Japan, but a very popular one, possibly the most popular, was Ise due to its reputation as a site for prayers for good harvest. Each year hundreds of thousands would go to Ise, and in a few years there were literally millions of pilgrims.

Japanese pilgrimage has been seen as an early form of tourism, with many guidebooks being printed. Some aspects of contemporary Japanese tourism seems to have roots in pilgrimage:- the package tour, omiyage, etc. Notwithstanding the religious aspect, it was a form of tourism and around each pilgrimage site huge "entertainment" districts served the needs of the pilgrims. At Ise, a single brothel was believed to have had over 1,000 girls working there.