Yoshiura Beach

 

Unable to finish a couple of long pilgrimages I have started because of the pandemic, my explorations and walks this past year have been along the coast here in Shimane. I have been trying to explore every single little nook  and cranny of the coastline, as much as is possible from the land.

A few minutes' walk up the coast from Kuromatsu port is a tiny settlement of Yoshiura. There is a small shrine, but other than that only residences, many uninhabited, and some well advanced in decay.

There is a small beach, accessible by a narrow sandy path between some houses. On a sunny day I imagine it would be quite pretty.

There is no harbor of any kind but there were a bunch of small boats well above the high tide level. They didnt look as if they were used much.

A Lot More Fudo at Myo-on-ji Temple

Myo-on-ji

I usually limit the number of photos in a post to just 5. This time I post a lot more, mainly because I realize that at my current rate of posting I will be dead long before I get to post everything. I previously posted 5 different Fudo Myo statues from Myo-on-ji temple, a small temple near the start of the Sasaguri Pilgrimage near Fukuoka.

All 11 photos in this post are also just from Myo-on-ji temple, and just statues of Fudo-Myo-O. My guess would be that while walking this 4 day pilgrimage I encountered at least 1,000 statues of Fudo Myo, probably much more. My fascination is with the wide diversity of forms that this deity takes and his incredible popularity.

The statues come in all manner of sizes and are made of a range of different materials, and of course, some of the sculptors will have been made by  highly skilled professionals and some by less than gifted amateurs. This in itself makes for a complex diversity, but there are other factors at play I think that means there is no one single identity for Fudo, but many, and this is why a single site like Myo-on-ji temple can have so many different altars to Fudo and statues of Fudo.

Fudo in Japan has an incredibly complex and rich history, and this has led to a wide set of fluid identities. Most commonly Fudo began as a Hindu deity, though some sources suggest an even earlier origin. Adapted into Indian Buddhism, Fudo spread with Buddhism to China and Korea. In China he picked up attributes from Daoist deities. before coming to Japan where, especially in the medieval period,  he picked up connections with an array of what are now called Shinto kami.

Within Japan he is most commonly associated with the two esoteric schools of Shingon and Tendai, but also within other sects. most notably Shugendo. His cult, or cults, spread through individual lineages and sub sects and his form and identity changed at specific temples and locations.

He appeared in a variety of different rituals and mandalas, as well as varying forms as statues. When researching his identity and attributes, as with any of the deities in Japanese religious traditions, one comes across all kinds of associations, for instance a particular figure may be ..... conflated with....., equated with......., identified with......., symbolizes......., an emanation of....., trace of....., manifestation of....., identical to....., representation of...., reincarnation of....., coresponds to...., interpreted as....., are all common phrases explaining identities and attributes of Japanese deities, not least Fudo.

These one-to-one relationships among deities come about for a variety of reasons, similar attributes etc but a common one is through language. Homophones are words that have the same sound but different meanings. With a relatively small range of sounds the Japanese language is rife with homophones and is why puns are so very common in Japanese humor. Another linguistic convention is the use of kanji, Chinese characters, which each have multiple meanings and pronunciations. A clear example of the latter is the conflation of the Buddhist deity Daikokuten, originally a Hindu deity, with Okuninushi, the famous Izumo kami, both names written with the same kanji.

As well as one on one identities of different deities, Fudo, like most others, exist in patterned relationships with groups of other deities in such things as rituals and mandalas. Pairing is very common, obviously reflecting the very basic yin-yang, male-female, light-dark, heaven-earth, structure. Triads are also common. Patterns of 5 are very common in Japan, and China too, with Fudo being the head of the five Wisdom Kings. patterns of seven are quite common and 12 is very common. With Fudo, 36 plays a part. All Fudo Myo-O pilgrimages are of 36 temples, whereas Kannon pilgrimages are 33.

So each statue of Fudo obviously shares many common features and attributes with other Fudo statues, but each identity can have multiple meanings, right down to each individual one being different. Oaths in historical Japan were not made to universal deities like Hachiman, Amida, or Amaterasu, but to the specific deity of a location, the Hachiman of a particular shrine, or to a particular Buddhist statue.

Karen Smyers excellent book "The Fox and the Jewel: Shared and private meanings in contemporary Inari worship." shows this rich and complex set of identities of Inari, one of the most popular deities in Japan. Bernard Faure"s book "The Fluid Pantheon" is an excellent source for digging into the meaning and identity of Fudo Myo-O. I am currently reading it so that's why I ramble so much in today's post.

A gentle reminder........ if you download and share any of my photos without supplying a link back to the original here, then you are in fact stealing. I am happy if you share my work, but I keep finding my photos around the interweb without any link back to my original, and that is sad.

Some Art at Horakuji Temple

 

Buddhist temples in Japan, like temples, shrines, and churches all over the world, are often repositories of a lot of art. Some temples have a little in the grounds, ornamenting the architecture, and inside on the aktars, etc. Some however are rich in artworks amd can be like visiting a museum or gallery.

It can be quite bewildering trying to know exactly what you are looking at. The massive array of deities, buddhas,  and other characters on display can be obscure. I myself spent my first decade in japan primarily visiting shrines, and have a pretty good grasp of kami and such, but it was not until I started walking the pilgrimages that I started to take note of Buddhist related figures, and while some I am pretty sure of being able to identify, I am by no means an expert.

This third phot I am pretty sure is Shoki, a Daoist demon-quelling figure. A lot of Daoism was imported into Japan through Buddhism, though there was probably some before that. Much of what is called shinto has roots in daoism though it is often referred to as "Chinese folklore". Shoki is well known to people in Iwami because he is the main character of a popular kagura performnce.

This photo of a young priest may be Kobo Daishi as a young man. Horakuji is a Shingon temple and their website says they have a modern statues of him. It may be Jiun, a famous 18th century monk who began his studies as an acolyte here when he was 13 and went on to become famous as both a sanskrit scholar and as a religious leader who emphasized a return to an earlier, less "degenerated" form of Buddhism.

This last one is obviously an onigawara, a demon rooftile to ward off evil. Quite a similarity to the "demon queller".

The Great Camphor Tree at Horakuji Temple

 

In the grounds of Horakuji Temple is a huge, ancient kusunoki tree. Estimated to be about 800 years old, it is officially the second oldest tree in Osaka, one in Sumiyoshi Taisha shrine being older.

Its dimensions are impressive. 26 meters tall and a similar size for the spread. The circumference of the trunk is 8 meters. It is said the tree can be seen from 8 kilometer away.

On one side at its base is a small Inari shrine with a few small vermillion torii leading to it. On the trunk, above a shimenawa is a Tengu mask.

Also at its base is an altar to Fudo Myo, 

Horakuji Temple 3 on the Kinki Fudo Myo Pilgrimage

 

The Kinki Fudo Myo Pilgrimage consists of 36 temples, but begins in Osaka with a clutsre of half a dozen close together, so I was visiting temple number three by lunchtime of my first day walking it. It is located in Tanabe, south central Osaka.

In the Edo period it became known commonly as Yakuyoke Tanabe Fudoson, yakuyoke being the "unlucky" years that the temple offered protection against. The hinzon is a Fudo, and the large flaming sword is like a sign making the temple easy to find in the highky built-up area.

The temple was founded by the son of the famous Taira no Kiyomori, Taira no Shgemori in 1178. The Kumano Kodo passes nearby and it is said that he established the temple here after completing the Kumano pilgrimage. The temple was destroyed by Oda Nobunaga, but rebuilt shortly afterwards.

The 3 storeyed pagoda is new, being built in 1996 and supposedly houses Buddha relics brought from China.The temple is home to an ancient silk painting of Fudo Myo, and is also where the famous monk and sanskrit scholar Jyuin studied.

Shirakawa Bridge Landscaping

 

The Sjirakawa River runs through downtown Kumamoto, and the main road that runs away from the railway station passes over the Shirakawa Bridge.

Fujie Kazuko was the young architect gice the project of "landscaping" the bridge as part of the Kumamoto Artpolis program.

Her project seems more like sculpture than architecture, primarily consisting of strang, geometric structures places on either sidewalk of the bridge. At night they light up/ Yje structures do seem to provide a little shade, but no protection from the weather.

It is the weakest of the Kumamoto Artpolis projects I have seen so far. Posts on other projects can be found at ths link.

Kumamoto Artpolis Kumamoto Station

 

Kumamoto Station is in the process of being redeveloped so it's not surprising that the project is incorporated into the Kumamoto Artpoli program. The West gate which is on the shinkansen side of the station and facing the hills has been completed.for ten years now.

A roof with organic curved outline and curved holes in it extend out from the entrance. There are also curved, vertical walls with rectangular opening that often frame vegetation. 

The architect was Sato Mitsuhiko. I enjoyed the space, especially as rhere are few people on this side of the station.

On the main East Gate only one small section has been completed, a long covered walkway that extends from the main station entranvnce out to the tram station which is covered with a flat roof with similar organic curves as the structure on the west side.

The plan is for more areas on this busier side of the station to have similar curved roofs. The architect is Nishizawa Ryue.

Honzoin Temple 55 of the Kyushu Pilgrimage

 

Honzoin is a very small, urban temple in downtown Kumamoto and number 55 on the Kyushu Pilgrimage  Its honzon is a Fudo Myoo, but I did not get into the main hall to see it. However there were multiple small Fudo statues in the grounds.

The Daishido was a simple, modern, concrete structure that was open. There was also a statue of Kobo daishi outside. The temple has been here since the 1930's but its origin lie with Mount Aso and Shugendo.

Mount Aso was a major shugendo center, and there were 37 sub temples scattered around the mountain as well as a main temple that was connected to the main shrine of the mountain. These were Tendai temples, and the other two major shugendo centers on yushu, Hikosan and Kunisaki, were also Tendai based. On Honshu the most dominant form of shugendo was Shingon related.

On early Meiji shugendo was outlawed and all of the temples on Aso wete closed down. One however moved to Kumamoto and converted to Shingon and then a few decades later moved again to its current location.

Kumamoto Station Koban

 

For those who don't know Japan so well, Koban is often translated as "Police Box" and they refer to  small police stations, not always manned 24 hours a day, that are scattered around the cities and rural areas.

I've seen several that were architecturally interesting, but perhaps the best is the one outside Kumamoto Station. It is one of the Kumamoto Artpolis projects.

An overhanging balcony extends out from the second floor, punctuated by circular holes of various sizes that allow the viewer to see the interior walls that are painted in a variety of pastel shades.

Unusually, for the Kumamoto Artpolis project,  the design was by a couple of non-Japanese architects, Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham, though they both had previously worked for Toyo Ito.