Uchihara Oji Shrine

 

Located in Hidaka, a little north of Gobo, for 800 years this was known as Takaie Oji, but was renamed in early Meiji.

It was one of the 100 Oji, shrines along the main pilgrimage route from Kyoto down the coast of Wakayama and then into the Kumano Sanzan shrines.

Shrine records say there was a shrine here in the mid 5th century. I'm not exactly sure when the system of Oji were established, but I am guessing in the Heian Period when the most imperial pilgrimages along this route took place. The primary kami is listed as Amaterasu, with secondary kami listed as Homuda Wake (Ojin), Ichikishimahime, Kagutsuchi, Sugawara Michizane (Tenjin), Kanayamahiko, and  Nintoku.

During the so-called shrine mergers of early 20th century, 30 local shrines were moved here including multiple Benzaiten, Konpira, Tenjin, and Inari shrines as well as many unamed "satogami".

I visited at the start of day 7 of my walk along the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage, which in this section follows the old Kumano Kodo Kiiji Route. The previous post was on the nearby Dojoji Temple, a famous and picturesque spot.

The Legend & Treasures of Dojoji Temple

 

Dojoji Temple is a very old Tendai Temple and is thought to be the oldest temple in what is now Wakayama. It is located in what is now the city of  Gobo and is close to the  Kiiji route of the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage route that runs from Kyoto down to Hongu.

It is believed to have been founded in the early 8th century, possibly as early as 701, and is known as the setting for the  ancient story of Anchin and Kiyohime.

The story was recorded in a picture scroll and became famous through the Noh play Dojoji, and also as a puppet play and a kabuki play, as well as lullabies and assorted songs. In all more than 100 versions of the story existed.

Anchin was a young, and of course handsome, monk on a pilgrimage to Kumano in 929 when he spent the night as a guest of a village headman a little to the south of Dojoji.. Kiyohime, the beautiful daughter of the headman, fell in love with Anchin and became besotted with him. He promised to meet her again on his return and continued on to Hongu.

However, on his return journey he took a different route that bypassed the village. When Kiyohime found out she became distraught and started to chase after Anchin, in the process her rage transformed her into a dragon. Fearing for his life, he sought refuge at Dojoji and the monks lowered the huge temple bell over him to hide him. The dragon melted the bell and so incinerated Anchin.

There are many variations and additions to the story, but in the Hobutsuden, a modern building displaying the treasure of the temple, visitors can listen to the story told by a monk from one of the existing emaki, picture scrolls.

The Hobutsuden is a delight. Many temple treasure halls are rather musty and dark, but here it is open, airy, and bright, like a modern museum.

Several of the statues are National Treasures, including a Senju Kannon, and a Nikko Bosatsu and Gakko Bosatsu, all dating from the Heian Period.

Also from the Heian Period are numerous Important Cultural Properties, a Juichimen Kannon, a Bishamonten,  the Shitenno, and a Shaka Nyorai Triad.

Other Important Cultural Properties dating back to the Nara Period include another couple of Senju Kannons.

As evidenced by the statuary, the temple was very prosperous during the Heian Period. Most of the temple was burned down during Hideyoshi's invasion of the Kii Peninsula but was rebuilt in the 17th century with further reconstruction in the 18th century.

The main hall however survived as did most of the statuary. It is a National Treasure and dates to 1357. The Niomon dates to 1694, and the Pagoda dates to 1763. The honzon of the temple is a Senju Kannon.

I visited on the 6th day of my walk along the Saigoku Pilgrimage and Kumano Kodo. The previous post was on the nearby Kishu Railway, in one sense the smallest railway in Japan.

Kishu Railway. The Shortest Railway Line in Japan.

 

As I walked into the outskirts of Gobo City in Wakayama I came across some abandoned railway tracks. A few minutes later I arrived at Nishi Gobo Station of the Kishu Railway, the shortest railway line in Japan.

Actually, there is technically a slightly shorter line, somewhere up near Tokyo, but as it runs on tracks, trains, and drivers leased from another company, that doesn't seem to count to me.

The Kishu Railway runs 2.7 kilometers from Nishi Gobo Station to Gobo Station, with three stops in-between. The abandoned tracks I saw were from the 700 meter section from Nishi Gobo to Hidakagawa which closed in 1989.

The line opened in 1931 as the Gobo Rinko Railway and was never really successful. In 1973 it changed names after being bought by a real estate company who wanted the cachet of being able to call itself a railway company.

The railway owns three diesel carriages but only 2 are operational. There are no passing loops, so a single train shuttles back and forth about twenty times a day.

With at most about 200 passengers a day, and even with unmanned stations and "one-man cars", it cannot be making a profit, but it seems that recently a Chinese company became the majority shareholder. I visited on day 6 of my walk along the Kumano Kodo and Saigoku pilgrimage. The previous post was on Shioya Oji Shrine.

Shioya Oji Shrine

 

Shioya Town, now art of Gobo City, lies on the southside of the Hidaka River on the West coast of the Kii Peninsula in Wakayama.

The shrine is said to have been founded in 805 by a man who began the salt-producing and salt trade that the town is named after.

In the 11th century, when imperial pilgrimages to Kumano were at their height, 99 subsidiary shrines called "oji" were established along the route.

Shioya Oji Shrine was in the first group of seven Oji established and so is considered one of the oldest and most important. Yesterday I had stopped at Kirimie Oji, and the day before at Takajiri Oji, another two from the first group of seven.

The shrine was also known as "Beautiful Oji Shrine", with two theories as to why. One suggests that the statue of Amaterasu enshrined here ( as a form of Dainichi Buddha) was particularly beautiful. Another that the beautiful sea views from the shrine inspired many songs and poems by courtiers who stayed here.

There are numerous secondary shrines in the grounds, including an Ebisu, an Inari, a Kotohira, and a Susa. The previous post in this series on the Kumano Kodo and Saigoku pilgrimage was From Kirime Oji to Tsui Oji.

Kashima Shrine Minabe

 

I came into Minabe at the end of a rainy fifth day of my walk. I was on the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage, claimed to be the oldest of the major pilgrimage circuits of Japan. For this first week, the route also followed the Kumano Kodo, though in reverse. This was the Kiiji section which runs from Tanabe up to Osaka and Kyoto.

The main shrine was a Kashima Shrine, with numerous secondary shrines and a small Inari shrine at the entrance.

According to te shrine history it is a branch of the famous Kashima Shrine up country, brought here in the early Nara Period.

However, it was located on a tiny uninhabited island just offshore and was known as Kashima Myojin.

During the Meiji Period, possibly 1909, the kami was transferred to the land and the shrine built, which explains the somewhat "meiji" feel of the shrine.

The main kami is Takemikazuchi, although Amaterasu and Susano are also listed. That may be a Meiji addition.

In the grounds are a Tenjin, Ebisu, another Inari, and a couple of other shrines.

The previous post in this series was Kozanji Temple in Tanabe.

Minakata Kumagusu Residence

 

Minakata Kamagusu was a Japanese eccentric and maverick who is considered by some to be Japan's first environmentalist. The house he lived in from 1916 until his death in 1941 is open to the public right next door to a modern museum to him in Tanabe, Wakayama.

In the previous post on the memorial museum, I wrote a little about him, but in this post I want to concentrate on the topic that made him famous, the shrine closure program of the government that began around 1910.

The shrine closure program only ran for a few years, and some areas resisted it quite strongly, but somewhere between 35 and 45 percent of all shrines throughout Japan were closed down. These were all local, nature-based deities that were moved, often quite some distance, to a "national" shrine.

Previously during the Meiji Period the government had "separated" the kami and the buddhas, destroying more than a millenia of religious development and in the process installing imperial connected kami in place of deities with Buddhist, Taoist, or non-imperial identities. They also began a program of creating major imperial shrines, some of which, like Meiji Jingi, Kashihara, and Heian, are now very popular.

The shrine closure program was part of this effort to create a new imperial-centered religion but also had a couple of secondary aims. One was to reduce the number of festivals that Japanese celebrated as this interfered with the industrial-oriented work ethic that the state wished to create.

Another factor was the"resource-rich" forest land that these traditional shrines encompassed. There was a lot of valuable timber on these lands when one considers the massive deforestation that the castle and town building of the Edo Period had created. It was this final point that caused Minakata to get involved, although he went on to argue an ecological viewpoint that included the destruction of culture in the formation of the state and national identity. For a more detailed look please click this recent online journal article about him.

The house is shown as it was when he lived there, thanks in large part to his daughter who kept all his possessions, research papers etc which can be accessed in the museum next door.