Taga Shrine Nogata

Taga Shrine in Nogata is the main shrine of the area and when I visited just before the new year they were getting ready for the influx of visitors in the new year.

It is located on a small hill next to the railway tracks and near the local Coal Museum.

Two large, relatively modern, rather chunky, komainu guard the main path.

Housed inside the main gate are a fine pair of older, wooden komainu, the earlier form that komainu took before the exterior, stone ones that are  now most common.

It is not known for sure when the shrine was founded although it claims to go back to the "Age of the Gods". Certainly, in 717 it existed and was known as Hikaru Daimyojin after the mountain called Hikaruyama.

A couple of decades later it was referred to as Myoken Daimyojin. The more I learn, the greater it seems the Myoken cult was in ancient Japan.

The shrine was destroyed by war several times  and rebuilt and sometimes renamed. In the mid 17th century it was majorly rebuilt and called Myoken Shrine. In the late 17th century it was renamed Taga Shrine.

The main kami of the shrine are Izanagi and Izanami, and the crest is a pair of wagtails as it was by watching a pair of wagtails mating that brother and sister Izanagi and Izanami learnt how to procreate.

I visited on December 28th, day 4 of my first walk around Kyushu, and preparations were underway for the busiest time of the shrine year, New Year.

In one of the rooms in the shrine office many young girls, probably high school or university students, were taking a class for their part time job as shrine maidens for the new year period.

There were many sub shrines within the grounds.

Next stop was the nearby Coal Museum as this was a major coal-producing region of Japan until the mid 20th century

Ensei-ji & Konpira-sha

Enseiji Temple, located down a small side street in Hagi is an example of something that was once the norm but is now unusual, it is both a temple and a shrine on the same site.

It is home to the biggest stone lantern in the prefecture as well as a huge Tengu mask. It is famous for being the temple where Ito Hirobumi, Japans first Prime Minister, studied as a child. I did hear that his uncle was a priest here.

The reason given why the shrine and temple were not forced to seperate is that they were holding writings of an imperial princess from several centuries earlier. As stated it doesnt make sense, but they were not forced to separate.

The shrine is a Konpira, a branch of the famous one on Shikoku known for protection for sea journeys. The temple part is Shingon and the honzon is a Jizo. The temple was founded in the 13th Century, a long time before the castle town was built.

More Monkeys of Koshinsha

I am intrigued by the eclectic collections of figures left at various kinds of "folk" altars around Japan.

So here are some more of the monkeys left at Koshinsha in Nogata.

Toys and dolls can often be found alongside icons from Shinto, Buddhism, Hinduism and even sometimes Christianity.

Sarubobo dolls and ema were also prevalent.

Kumano Sansho Omiwasha

I started my walk along the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage in Nachi on the south coast of Wakayama. The first temple is Seigantoji at the famous Nachi Falls, and for the first 8 days the Saigoku Pilgrimage follows the Kumano Kodo.

Just across from the station in Nachi is Kumano Sansho Omiwasha, a subsidiary shrine of Nachi Taisha, and right next door to Fudurakusanji, the temple it was a part of until the separation of shrines and temples in early Meiji.

People would stop at the shrine to purify before heading next door to the temple and then on up the valley to the falls.

The three kami enshrined here are the three Kumano kami enshrined at Nachi, Shingu, and Hongu, Fusumi no okami, Hayatamano, and Ketsumiko no mikoto.

Some monkeys at Koshinsha

The popular form of Koshin worship is now associated with the famous three monkeys and also with Sarutahiko. Statues of monkeys are therefore often found at Koshin sites.

At the Koshinsha in Nogata there were dozens and dozens of them, though my favorite must be the one in the first photo. A very happy monkey.

The eclectic collections of statues and dolls left by devotees at sacred sites popular in what is called "folk" religion around Japan intrigue me.

The figure below, a monkey carrying a gohei. a purification wand, is something I have seen a few times before.

Koshinsha, Nogata

Koshinsha is a site dedicated to the Koshin faith. Origiunally Chinese Taoist in essence it was introduced into japan from Korea in the 8th Century.

Adherents stay awake all night every 60 days on Ko Shin days to stop 3 "worms" from leaving their body and reporting to a god about their good and bad behaviour.

Koshin faith became influenced by Buddhism, and in the middle of the Edo period by a branch of Confucian Shinto that equated the faith with Sarutahiko. In Meiji it was discredited as "superstition" though it has survived a little. There is also a small Inari shrine in the grounds.

At some point in its history the symbolism of the three monkeys became a part of it, and that is its most common identity today.

Shodoshima Pigrimage temple 4 Furue-an

Just after sunrise on Christmas Eve, I was greeted by Fudo Myo, an auspicious beginning as I set out on the Shodoshima Pilgrimage.

I started at temple number 4, Furue-an, as my minshuku was literally right next door. I am going to do a loop around the small peninsula before heading up unto the mountains to the official first temple. In front was a line of 33 Kannon statues representing the Bando Kannon Pilgrimage.

Furue-an can be translated as a hermitage rather than a temple. At a point in the past, a monk or nun lived here, but it is not a temple with a priest. It is maintained by local people, and quite a few of the "temples" on this pilgrimage are hermitages. There is a very homely and friendly atmosphere at them.

It is located right on the water's edge and right behind it is a small local shrine named Otomiya Shrine. In many small communities such as Furue the shrine and temple are right next to each other and historically would have been one place.

The honzon is an Amida Nyorai, said to have been carved in the Kamakura period. Behind the temple is a memorial to the fact that this beach was used for suicide submarine practice during the war.

Kofukuji, Nogata

Just across the road from Saikyo-In was a much bigger temple so I stopped in to have an explore. It was not one of the pilgrimage temples but I consider those just way points on a journey, and all the things inbetween are just as much a part of the pilgrimage.

There was no-one around and also no signboard so I could find out nothing about it other than its name.

I am guessing it is a Shingon temple, 2 clues being that there were a couple of Fudo Myo statues, and he is particularly popular with Shingon, and the structure in the photo below is I believe a Shingon style pagoda.

I could be wrong, of course!

Yama Shrine, Irinaka

Located just a couple of hundred meters from the Okazaki Shrine, but at the base of the hills on the opposite bank of the small river and therefore part of traditionally a different community, is the aptly name Yama (mountain) Shrine.

It was now late morning on the first day of my walk along the Chugoku Pilgrinage and after visiting the first temple of the pilgrimage I was taking a detour to visit a site just to the north. The village of Irinaka lies on the Sanyo-do, the old road that ran along the southern coast that the modern Route 2 roughly follows.

Bizen, the old province name, is famous for its Bizenware ceramics, and the two komainu flanking the entrance to the shrine were made of it. The shed skin of a snake was draped over one.

There was no information on the kami enshrined here but I suspect it was just the local ujigami/yamagami. The two smaller shrines I suspect were moved here from nearby when the government "consolidated" shrine 100 years ago.

Kyushu Pilgrimage Temple 15 Saikyo-in

Day 4 of my Kyushu pilgrimage was overcast and threatening to rain. From Iizuka I headed north up the wide valley towards Nogata.

The first temple of the day was Saikyo-in, just south of Nogata, and quite a small establishment.

According to the legend, Kobo daishi stopped here on his way back from China, and in a similar story repeated hundreds of times across the country he struck the ground with his staff and caused a spring to be established.

It is believed the temple was established in 950 and the honzon is an 11-faced Kannon, though it was all locked up when I was there.