Tozan Shrine Arita: Japan's Porcelain Shrine

 

Tozan is the popular reading of the kanji for Sueyama, the official name of this shrine in the old town of Arita in Saga.

While most torii entrances are made of stone, concrete, wood, and even sometimes metal, the one here is made of porcelain.

Not only that, but some of the komainu, lanterns, and other features are also made of porcelain.

Arita is said to be the origin of Japanese porcelain, when kaolin, the fine white clay used to make porcelain was discovered nearby in the early 17th century.

The local legend has it that it was a man named Yi Sam-pyeong, a Korean known in Japanese as Kanagae Sanbee, who discovered the kaolin deposit , and a bust of him stands in the shrine. (photo 3)

The shrine was founded in 1658 as Arita Sarayama Sobyo Hachimangu, with the name changing in early Meiji to Sueyama Shrine.

As a Hachimangu the primary kami would be Hachiman, considered an incarnation of Ojin a semi-mythical early Emperor.

In 1923 Nabeshima Naoshige was enshrined here. He was the local Daimyo credited with "bringing" many Korean potters to the area during his retreat from Korea at the end of Hideyoshi's invasion.

Many sources use fairly passive verbs to describe this "resettling" of Koreans but in reality they were kidnapped and enslaved.

Many of the estimated 50,000 to 200,000 Korean captives were farmers but technicians like potters were much sought after. Kidnapped Korean potters were responsible for Satsuma ware and Hagi ware, but also mining engineers, movable-type printers and even Confucian scholars were also kidnapped accompanied by massive looting of art such as temple bells and statues.

The previous post in this series exploring Arita was on the surrounding Historic Preservation District.

Kishu Toshogu Shrine

 

Kishu Toshogu is a very colorful shrine in Wakayama City. Kishu was the feudal domain of the Edo Period that was roughly what is now northern Wakayama Prefecture and part of Mie Prefecture.

Toshogu is the name given to shrines enshrining the deified first Tokugawa Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu. The main and first Toshogu is in Nikko.

It is located in the Wakanoura area in the south of Wakayama City. Wakanoura means Bay of Poetry and is a revered location that has had many poems written about it since ancient times.

By the end of the Edo Period there were about 500 branches of Toshogu established all over Japan, but that number has been seriously reduced since then.

From the parking lot and shrine offices, a stone stairway called Samuraizaka leads up to the shrine. It is composed of 108 steps, an important number in Buddhism.

The Romon, main gate, is very colorful and ornate, like many of the other structures, and also registered as an Important Cultural Property.

The original Toshigu in Nikko is famous for being extremely colorful and ornate, and many branch Toshogu's have tried to emulate that. Here at Kishu artworks were executed by Hidari Jingoro and Kano Tan'yu, among others.

The main gate contains a pair of fine Zuijin, Shinto Shrine Guardians.

Kishu Toshogu was built in 1619 by Tokugawa Yorinobu, the tenth son of Ieyasu, who became the first daimyo of Kishu Domain. He was also enshrined here after his death.

As far as I can tell this makes Kishu Toshogu the very first branch of Nikko Toshogu.

Ieyasu was deified as Toshogu Gongen, said to be a manifestation of a Buddha, using a variation of Sanno Shinto, a sect based on the Tendai complex at Mount Hiei.

Before the official separation of the kamis and Buddhas in 1868 there was a pagoda and a Yakushi-do here.

The previous post in this series exploring Wakayama was the Museum of Modern Art.

Rikitake Kamado Shrine

Rikitake Kamado Shrine

After visiting Nyoirinji Temple, the "Frig Temple" that was number three on the Kyushu pilgrimage I am walking, and the second temple of the day, I carried on roughly SW towards the next temple, and was now walking along the old Nagasaki Highway that connected Nagasaki with Moji.

In the settlement of Rikitake I stopped in at the village shrine which was a branch of Kamado Shrine a little north of here in Dazaifu.

The original Kamado Shrine is said to have been established by Emperor Tenji in 664, on top of the sacred mountain Mount Homan. He moved the political and administrative capital of Kyushu to the base of the mountain, now Dazaifu, as a defensive measure expecting Japan to be attacked by Sila.

More information on his military defeat on the Korean peninsula the year before can be found in some of the posts I did on shrines I visited yesterday further east in Asakura.

Originally it is said he enshrined thousands of kami in Kamado Shrine, though now it is listed as enshrining Tamayorihime, Jingu, and Ojin. A Buddhist priest, Shinren, had a vision of Tamayorihime on Mount Homen a few years after the shrine was originally established.

This branch shrine lists Tamayorihime as the main kami and also lists Yamashita Kagehime and Kora Tamatari, but I can find no information on those two kami.

The shrine did have a small pair of weathered zuijin that were unusual.

Guardians of Kitano Tenmangu in Kurume

 

On the north bank of the Chikugo River in Fukuoka, and now a part of Kurume City, is a large Tenmangu Shrine established in the 11th Century. A branch of the original Kitano Tenmangu shrine established in Kyoto, the area around the shrine is now called Kitano.

Tomorrow I  will post photos of the shrine with inf0 about it, but for now a sequence of pics on the gurdian statues there, starting with komainu, of which there were multiple pairs of stone ones lining the approach.

Inside the gatehouse were also some of the older style of komainu carved in wood. Unusually they were painted red

Also inside the gatehouse was a pair of Zuijin, the shinto version of Buddhist Nio guardians. Though some date back to the Edo period, many are post Meiji era and replaced Nio.

Zuijin was the original term for imperial guards, and they are most often shown holding bows and arrows.

Flanking the main hall are a pair of stylized bird statues, one gold, the other silver. Sometimes you find statues of doves at Hachiman shrines as the dove is messenger of this god of war in Japan but I really dont know what these are or what they represent.

Many shrines have a wooden statue of a white horse, Based on a very old tradition of donating a horse to a shrine to pray for rain, this is also the origin of the ema votive plaques.....

Unusual, and I'm not sure of their significace, but there were also this trio of red horses...... more on the shrine tomorrow....

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Miscellaneous Statues along the Hita Kaido

Statues along the Hita Kaido

One of the subjects I focus on finding as I walk the roads and lanes of Japan is sculptures. On my walk along the Hita Kaido, the old highway running East out of Kurume, I encountered a huge number of them  I've posted about the large number of Ebisu statues along the road. Ther were so may I did a second post. One town along the way had lots of Kappas, and of course, I recently posted a lot of Komainus.

This time I want to show you a selection of other statues from that day's walk that don't fit the other categories.

The top photo is of a small shrine that has a diverse collection of statues left by different parishioners over time. In this particular instance, all the statues are Buddhist, but very often they are a mix of Buddhist, Shi to, Daoist, secular, and occasionally, Christian statues.

Shrines tend to not have as many statues s temples. Earlier they would have had a lot of Buddhist staues but most were removed in the seperation of buddhas and kami. Other than komainu, I think the second most common category of shrine statues would be Zuijin. Usually nrightly ainted, but sometimes lain wood, Lafcadio Hearn says they were a shinto response to Buddhist Nio guardians, though many shrines had Nio, and in some places, like the Kunisaki Peninsula, they still do.

I have to admit I jave no idea who or what this pair represent......

You will sometimes find a white, wooden horse, usually inside a small structure. These derive, I thnk, from the ancient tradition of offering horses to shrines for rain, and probably, in my opinion, from an earlier time when animals were sacrificed. Some shrines have rather realistic, bronze statues of hotses, made in the modern period I believe. This stone horse was quite funky, and I am not sure of its purpose or meaning.

Finally, I came across this phallic statue. Once very widesread, now mostly extinct, though I do keep finding them, mostly in remote locations. Mostly fertility objects, but many were also for prayers to heal sexual ailments and diseases, and I recently came across a very popular shrine devoted to prayers for "sexual vigor".

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Miyama Tenmangu

 

Miyama is a small rural settlement in the southern part of Fukuoka Prefecture that used to be called Chikugo. I passed through while walking north on the 50th day of my walk along the Kyushu Pilgrimage.

The local shrine, a Tenmangu, was shrouded in mist. The small Zuijinmon, guardian gate, housed a pair of brightly colored wooden komainu.

As well as a pair of Zuijin, the shinto guardians that Lafcadio Hearn suggested were a Shinto response to  Nio guardians.

Set among a grove of old trees, there are also a pair of stone Komainu. I can find no dates for the shrine, but was probably just a local ujigami shrine until Tenjin was later "installed". I know in my own area of Tenjin, and other national kami,  being installed in local shrines in the early twentieth century to save them from being closed.

Unusually the taiko drum was hung outside the building. Most small shrines will have a single taiko, often in very poor condition, still inside the main building.

I've saved what I think is the best photo for last. Within the shrine grounds there was a Buddhist statue still remaining.