Kyushu 108 Pilgrimage Temple 93 Shohoji

I began the third day of my walk around Kyushu visiting Nanzoin in Sasaguri, though this was not one of the 108 pilgrimage temples on my route.

After Nanzoin the road dropped down out of the mountains into the Iizuka valley and by lunchtime I reached Shohoji, one of the twenty "extra" temples added on to the main 88. Like all temples on this particular pilgrimage it belonged to the Shingon sect.

The young priest welcomed me and made me a cup of tea, something that would happen quite often on this walk. Its not a very popular pilgrimage even among Japanese, and I was truly made to feel a guest by many temples.

He told me that his father was the priest of a temple not too far from here that I would be visiting in the later stages of the pilgrimage. He also told me his father had walked the whole pilgrimage .

The honzon of the temple was a seated Yakushi Nyorai, and there was a pair of stone nio, in the now prevalent, standard, national, style, a small Fudo, and several Jizo. What there was a lot of was frogs......

The Grand Tour: London Aquatics Centre

After Colchester we stopped in at the Olympic Park in London.

The distinctive Aquatics centre was designed by Zaha Hadid, who is well known here in Japan for having designed the new olympic stadium but then having the design rejected.

There are some design similarities between the two projects, and I have no idea what the general opinion is but I quite like it. I also liked her Tokyo proposal.

In general I like architecture that utilizes curves. I would have liked to go inside but we were short of time.

Nanzoin Temple part 3

The final post on some of the multitude of statues at Nanzoin temple in Sasaguri, Fukuoka. here is a nice tableau of the shichifukujin, the seven Lucky Gods.

In every nook and cranny there are tiny Jizo statues....

These seem to be a Buddhist Jizo version of the 7 lucky gods.....

yet more Jizo.......

Sakimori were various forms of frontier guardians, and this curious statue is a memorial to police, sdf, coast guard and firefighters....

Happy New Year of the Monkey

Fudo Myoo of Shikoku part 10

Continuing with statues of Fudo Myoo encountered while I walked the Shikoku Pilgrimage, this first one is at temple 58, Senyuji, just outside Imabari. It is a miniature Fudo, but nicely detailed.

On the way down from temple 60, the mountain temple, Yokomineji, I stopped in at Shirataki Okunoin, not part of the pilgrimage, and here I found a waterfall looked over by Fudo and two of his young boy servants usually known as Kimkara and Cetaka.

This small Fudo was in the grounds of Temple 64, Maegamiji, in Saijo City.

As was this last one.....

Nanzoin Temple part 2

There is a lot to see at Nanzoin Temple. A friend once described it, critically, as like a Buddhist "theme park", but I think back in the Edo period pilgrimage temples were a lot like that with many "attractions" to draw pilgrims. In the grounds  stands a massive, ancient tree that had been hit by lightning, though still living. Carved into it is a relief of Raijin, the God of Thunder and Lightning.

Nanzoin is a pilgrimage temple, being the first of the Sasaguri Pilgrimage. There is also a complete set of the 500 Rakan, or Arhats, the disciples of the Buddha, each with a different face and pose.

Not sure who this is. Obviously dressed as a monk, it might very well be Kobo Daishi. the founder of Shingon, the sect to which Nanzoin belongs.

This modern carving of a married couple is a Sainokami, also known as Dosojin. In earlier times they were often a single phallic stone, or a a pair of stones and were placed at village boundaries and crossroads for protection.

Probably a Jizo as he often is holding a staff and with children around him, but he seems to have a medicine jar in his left hand which is what Yakushi Nyorai, the Healing Buddha, would be holding

Hofukuji Jizo-Do

These are a unique form of Nio that I have not seen anywhere else. They are carved as diagonal spars that support the porch roof on the Jizo Do at Hofukuji, a small temple in the Teramachi district of Hagi. Only the Jizo Do remains, the main hall being destroyed in early Meiji.

I have been unable to find out anything about them, so if anyone has seen anything like this before, please leave a comment.

There is a legend connected to a Jizo statue here. A local man married a beautiful woman who died giving birth to a son. The father hired a nurse to take care of his son. Later he remarried and his second wife gave birth to a son. The nurse used to take both boys to play in the grounds of Hofukuji. The wife beacme increasingly jealous of the first so, believing that her son deserved to inherit the family business, so one day took a red-hot poker and struck the first son, apparently killing him.

Next day however, the son was fine with not a mark on him. Later a Jizo statue at the temple was discovered with a burn mark across its face, causing the wife to repent and become a devotee of the statue.

This is a rather unusual statue of Daruma Daishi, the Japanese name for Bodhidharma, the legendary monk who brought Buddhism to China.

Nanzoin Temple part 1

Nanzoin Temple, a Shingon temple in Sasaguri, near Fukuoka, is a big temple complex with lots of statuary. I have already posted about the numerous Fudo Myoo statues and the giant reclining Buddha. Above is an Enmeijizo, a Jizo who grants a long life, housed in a small. thatched structure.

Of course there are plenty of other Jizo statues.

En no Gyoja, the famed 7th Century ascetic, is generally considered to be the founder of Shugendo. He is often depicted with a pair of servants, the husband and wife Zenki and Goki, 2 demons who En no Gyoja converted.

Maneki Neko, the welcoming cat, has obscure origins, but is almost certainly not Buddhist, however this one is more than 2 meters tall.

With their pleated bodies, these would appear to be stone versions of Teru Teru Bozu, the folk dolls usually made of paper or cloth and hung to attract fine weather.

Okazaki Shrine, Kidani

Standing in front of this small, rural shrine in Kidani, southern Okayama, was an unusual torii. I saw another at the shrine in the middle of the village, and my guess is they were constructed to house lanterns for matsuri.

It is an Okazaki Shrine, and as there were no information boards I presume it is a branch of the famous Okazaki Shrine in Kyoto.

As such it enshrines 3 main kami, Susano, Kushinada, &  Yahashira no Mikagami, the last being eight offspring of Susano.

I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating:- I often hear that Amaterasu is the primary kami in Shinto, but really that is just a hangover from State Shinto that placed here in that position to elevate emperor worship. If you actually check shrines all over the couintry, then shrines to Susano and his lineage far outnumber shrines to Amaterasu and her lineage.

Nanten Inari Shrine

Nanten Inari Shrine is located in a pretty, wooded, narrow valley in the grounds of Nanzoin Temple, between the main temple buildings and the giant Nehanzo.

At first I was not sure if it was in fact an Inari Shrine, as there were no guardian fox statues. There were also no multiple toriis.

At the base there was a small pond with a Benzaiten statue, so I thought it could have been a Benten Shrine.

However, at the small honden at the top of the steps there were a small pair of kitsune figurines.