A Diversity of Fudo

As any regular reader of this blog will know, I happen to have somewhat of a fascination with Fudo Myo, the fierce, fanged deity surrounded by flames. As I wander around the countryside I am always somewhat reassured to find his countenance, either within a temple or even just along the roadside.

I am also somewhat obsessed with the increasing loss of diversity nowadays.  Certainly, small statues are going to be mass produced, plastic, metal, plaster, concrete, all use molds. Increasingly stone statues or homogenous. Automated and computer-controlled machinery using the same dataset are churning out identical statues everywhere.

so here are a group of diverse statues of Fudo, all found at one temple, Hojoji in Satsuma, Kagoshima, temple 46 on the Kyushu 108 temple pilgrimage dedicated to Kobo Daishi.

The largest one and possibly some others will have been put up by the temple, but the smaller ones will have been dedicated by individual parishioners. Like all the other "deities" you encounter in Japan, Fudo has multiple meanings and powers and is likewise worshipped for a variety of reasons.

Stormy Beaches

Beaches

On the second day of my walk eastward along the Japan Sea coast was blustery with overcast skies as a typhoon had passed by the day before. Between Asari and Kuromatsu a section of the sea was relatively calm and a sole paddleboarder was out enjoying herself.

Once when I showed some Japanese friends some photos of beaches in Cornwall they wanted to know where the trash was. Here in Japan I often hear that all the trash on Japanese beaches has come from Korea. Its true that the current does flow in that direction and certainly some of the detritus is not Japanese, but the majority of it seems to be from commercial fishing. Every time we have heavy rains and floods the rivers fill with plastic from the riverbanks and makes its way to the sea.

Oshima, meaning Big Island, is just offshore. Uninhabited except by a kami. The shrine at Kuromatsu has no honden, the sanctuary normally found at the rear of a shrine and where the kami resides when it is present. The honden is on the island entailing a wonderful summer matsuri with boats going out to the island to bring the kami to shore.

The second line of wind generators is found on this next stretch of beach. The mountains behind are the edge of the mountains of Iwami Ginzan.

Hojoji Temple number 46 on the Kyushu Pilgrimage

Leaving Satsumasendai I followed the Sendai river upstream into the mountains until reaching the town of Satsuma. Placenames can be quite confusing in Japan with boundaries being redrawn and places given new names. Satsuma was originally a samurai domain that roughly corresponds with what is now Kagoshima Prefecture. At the same time that prefectures were created something called Satsuma-gun was created. This could be seen as a district or county.

Much later many of the towns and villages within Satsuma-gun were amalgamated together to form Satsumsendai City. This left just 2 small towns in the mountains as Satsuma-gun so they were renamed Satsuma Town. This is where I reached temple 46.

Architecturally it was nothing special but it did have a lot of statues, including one of Kobo Daishi the founder of Shingon. He is the focus of this particular pilgrimage.

While documenting my pilgrimages with my camera I sometimes  forget to just look for the "abstract" beauty of light and shadow that used to be a bigger preoccupation of my eyes.

I did encounter 5 different statues of Fudo Myo here, so that is worthy of a separate post.

Typical Japanese landscape

Way back, many years ago, when I started this blog I did a series of posts titled Typical Japanese landscape. Of course they were quite varied, some being urban some rural etc. Unfortunately, all these posts have lost their photos because of a change in hosting.

Usually every May I go for a walk in the mountains somewhere specifically to take photos of freshly flooded nd planted paddies/ The combination of reflection with clear blue skies and fresh green is irresistible to me.

This year because of the pandemic travel was limited so I had to make do with a late afternoon walk around my own village.

These scenes and views are comparable to what can be found throughout Japan right now.

Komyoji Interiors

The main hall of Komyoji Temple in Saijo on Shikoku is entered through a glass corridor that traverses the poolof water surrounding the building. The main construction material is laminated wood. The roof is supported by 16 columns in groups of four.

It was designed by Tadao Ando and he writes that the design evolved but by bit and was influenced heavily by traditional architectural techniques. The result is I think very modern and minimal but certainly retains some feelig of being a traditional temple.

The use of many pieces of wood in the structure of the roof is certainly traditional. However it is much lighter inside than a normal temple.

The interior walls are frosted glass which somewhat mimics the paper screens of tradition,

It is free to enter and would recommend it as an unusual Ando structure. It is a short detour from the Ohenro pilgrimage route that passes through the town.

Tadao Ando's Komyoji Temple

Komyoji Temple

When Komyoji Temple in Saijo on Shikoku decided to rebuild the temple they chose Ando Tadao to design it. Probably the best known internationally of contemporary Japanese architects, Ando is primarily associated with concrete.

Some of the ancillary buildings are made of concrete but the temple's main hall is made out of wood. Somewhat minimal, but inspired by traditional temple architecture, the main hall is surrounded by a shallow pool of water, another Ando trademark.

I had visited the temple once before, on a cloudy day, and took the opportunity to revisit on a nice sunny day to take advantage of the strong shadows that are often found in Ando's work. Sometimes it is illuminated at night, but not the day I visited.

If there is enough interest then I will post photos taken in the interior.

Purchase a selection of ema from GoodsFromJapan

Nitta Shrine Satsumasendai

I visited Nitta Shrine in Satsumasendai very early in the morning. The town's name is Sendai, but it is called Satsumasendai to distinguish it from the more famous Sendai up north. It was the 37th day of my Kyushu Pilgrimage and I had a long way to go today. Also I prefer shrines very early because the light is so good for photography, and there are few people around.

Situated on a hill overlooking the river, it is the main shrine for the town and was in fact the Ichinomiya, the highest-ranked shrine of the former province.. It is thought it was established in the early 8th Century, and the primary kami are listed as Ninigi and Amaterasu.

There are many secondary shrines in the grounds and an enormous, old tree, something common at most of the bigger shrines I've visited in Kyushu.

There are plenty of painted carvings on the buildings and I was particularly impressed with a pair of komainu. There is a tendency nowadays for a homogenity in komainu designs throughout the country, but I delight in finding older examples that have unique features.

More Kunisaki Cliff Carvings

The Motomiya Magaibutsu are a set of Buddhist cliff carvings in the Kunisaki Peninsula. I had started the day at what are believed to be the biggest cliff carvings in Japan, the Kumano Maigaibutsu, and later in the day after visiting the wonderful statuary on display at Makiodo I carried on walking north .

The figure on the left is a Jizo, next to Jikokuten. In the center of the first photo is a Fudo Myo flanked by his two attendants Setakadoji and Kongaradoji. The figure on the far right is Tamonten. It is believed they were all carved in the late Kamakura Period. Oita, and Kunisaki in particular, has the highest concentration of magaibutsu in Japan.

I was on the first day of my walk along the Kyushu Fudo Myo Pilgrimage, and as the first few temples were all located in Kunisaki I took the opportunity to take a longer walk roughly following the old Kunisaki/Hachiman pilgrimage. Kunisaki remains my favorite area in japan because of the remoteness and huge diversity of ancient religious sites.

The Motomiya Magaibutsu are now protected by a roof, but 20 minutes earlier I had visited a smaller set of Magaibutsu, the Daimonbo Magaibutsu, at the ruined site of a former temple. These magaibutsu are still exposed to the elements and are somewhat more eroded. Out of the photo on the left is a small standing Fudo Myo. The figure on the right is said to be Dainichi Nyorai, but no-one seems sure who the central figure is.

Just beyond the site of the ruined temple is a small Inari Shrine. The sheer number of shrines and temples and such in the area is quite staggering. It is said that there are more than 32,000 stone statues of various sizes in the area..... one for each kanji of the Lotus Sutra. It is thought that the Lotus Sitra is "mapped" onto the landscape of the Kunisaki Peninsula.

This was my sixth trip to the area and I was hoping to get to some of the many sites I had long been wanting to visit.....

Kenzanji Temple 49 on the Kyushu Pilgrimage

This little man-made grotto/cave with a Fudo Myo is ain Kenzanji Temple located in Hiyoshi, in Hioki on the west coast of the Satsuma peninsula in Kagoshima. It is temple 49 on the 108 temple pilgrimage of Shingon temples on  Kyushu.

It isn't an old temple though it has an historic stone pagoda from an older temple that used to exist nearby. The main hall is a portakabin, something I have never seen before. The main hall burned down apparently
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Like many of these small, out of the way, rural temples there is a lot of statuary and such in the grounds, often produced by amateurs.

Eclectic is a word that springs to mind when I visit such places. This was day 36 of my walk along this pilgrimage.... still a few days away from the half way point.

Aizendo Shomanin Temple

This rather colorful Fudo Myo is at Aizendo Shomanin Temple near Shitennoji in Osaka. I had left Shitennoji, the first temple on the Kinki Fudo Myo Pilgrimage, and was heading to a couple of others nearby. This area has quite a few old temples including Aizendo which dates back to the late 6th Century and is credited to Shotoku Taishi, who is also credited with founding nearby Shitennoji.

Seemingly unknown to tourists, Aizendo is very popular with locals and as well as the Fudo has shrines and statues to several different Kannon, several different Jizo, Inari, the 7 lucky Gods, and several other deities all specializing in genze riyaku, usually translated as "this-worldly benefits", or possibly "divine favors". Such things as wealth, health, success, safe-birth, finding a spouse, etc etc.

The main deity is Aizen Myo, housed in the main hall which dates back to the early 17th Century when it was rebuilt by Hidetada, the second Tokugawa Shogun, after the temple had been destroyed by Oda Nobunaga.  Like other Wisdom Kings, Aizen was originally a Hindu deity and he usually appears with a lion in his hair and having multiple arms. Associated with turning lust into enlightenment, he is often seen as a god of love in Japan.

The pagoda is said to be the oldest wooden building in all of Osaka. It was rebuilt by Hideyoshi in 1597. The interior walls of the pagoda have some fine murals. All in all a fascinating temple in a fascinating area for any who want to avoid tourists but get to see some ancient history.