Sorry all, I know it has been quite a while since my last
post, but I have been overwhelmed with projects and assignments from my
Japanese classes. Thankfully, this has
not kept me from traveling and exploring, just blogging about it.
So the first major shrine I went to was Yasaka Shrine in the
Gion District. This district is known
for its Kabuki theatres and illusive Geisha. However, this shrine is
particularly important because it is dedicated to the kami (god) who is thought
to have saved Kyoto from a major epidemic in 869 AD, becoming the god of
medicine. This kami is Susano-o, one of
the major deities from the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters-basically a book
detailing Japan’s early mythic history).
Every July 17th , a festival procession makes its way through
Kyoto to honor this deity and to pray for continued protection from sickness
during the hot and humid summer months.
Next up is one of my all time favorites: Fushimi Inari
Taisha. This is one of the iconic worship spots of Kyoto with its hundreds of
vermillion torii winding up the mountain like a tunnel. Vermillion color symbolizes peace and good
harvest. The row of torii is about 2.5
miles long, and each torii is a donation from a company or family in the area.
This shrine is dedicated primarily to the goddess of rice
and foodstuffs but also of fertility and growth. There are actually five kami/gods enshrined
here related to various commonalities of daily life, and the fox is the sacred
animal or familiar of these deities. Its
bushy tail symbolizes abundant harvest and a stone in its mouth represents the
spirit of the deities. There are about
20,000 sacred stones on the mountain guarded by such fox statues. On July 22-23, about 1,500 paper lanterns and
300 stone lanterns will be lit all the way up the mountain and Bon Odori dances
will be performed to welcome home deceased relatives coming to visit their
families for the night. I think Fushimi
Inari holds a special place in my heart for its beauty and its dense spiritual
atmosphere. Every few feet there was a
place to stop and contemplate and pray, making me feel the climb to the top of
the mountain was more of a personal pilgrimage than a sightseeing
expedition. There was definitely a sense
of reverent awe and peacefulness I have not found anywhere else I have visited.
The next weekend I went with Julianna to Nijo Castle, once
the palace of Tokugawa shoguns. The
building was designed to impress and intimidate its visitors. Tokugawa Ieyasu ordered his subordinate
daimyo to construct Nijo castle at their own expense after failing to oust him
from power in around 1603. The castle is
surrounded by a moat and is composed of five interconnected buildings. To prevent infiltration, the famous
“Nightingale floor” makes a chirping sound when it is walked on to alert guards
of intruders. As an indicator of rank and status, the floors of each connected
building are at a higher level than the previous, and certain visitors were
shown to the building commensurate with their rank. The buildings are surrounded by beautiful
gardens, and the Seiryu Garden was added in 1965 for official receptions.
For July 4th, Julianna, Elliott and I had made a
reservation to tour the Imperial Palace of Kyoto or “Gosho.” Foreigners in Japan are allowed to make a
tour reservation with their passport, but this is only accessible to Japanese
nationals once a year. As you can
imagine, these tours fill up quickly and we reserved ours weeks in advance, so
we felt very fortunate to have managed this.
There are two tours a day: one at 10 a.m. and one at 2 p.m. The original palace was constructed in
Northern Kyoto but was destroyed by fire, and the emperor moved to Kobe. Upon his return to Kyoto, the current Gosho
was constructed. The city of Kyoto is
set up in a grid pattern like the imperial capital of the Ch’ang-an dynasty in
China with the Gosho at its center.
Originally, the emperor and his family lived here as did the families of
several high ranked court nobles (a sort of “friendly” hostage system).
Interestingly, at the northeast corner of the walls, the
corner is inverted and a carving of a monkey was set up to protect against evil
since northeast is the direction of the “Devil’s Gate.”
The roofs are made from layers and layers of shaved bark and
some of the buildings are held together with the Japanese equivalent of a dowel
(a toothpick sized wooden stick), about 2000 of these per building.
The Oike-Niwa (Pond Garden) is a magnificently sculpted
garden carefully constructed to recreate a scenic image of the mountains and
the ocean (since it is so far away). The
varying heights of the trees signify the mountains and the lake of course is
the ocean.
This palace used to be the place of coronation for new
rulers of Japan, but after the death of Emperor Hirohito, the coronations have
been held in Tokyo, ending the over 1,000-year-old tradition.
Finally, I leave you all with a really fun and beautiful spot to visit: Kiyomizu-dera
Temple. This is one of Japan’s beautiful
World Heritage Sites. It’s quite a walk
to this breathtaking spot where one can look out upon all of Kyoto, about 30-40
minutes from Gosho, half of it uphill.
Of course for those of you who can figure out the Japanese bus system it
takes considerable less time. Be my
guest. Of course if you do ride that bus
or take a taxi, you’ll miss out on part of the fun of the climb, which is
passing by rows and rows of little shops selling crepes and ice cream and
o-miyage (souvenirs). They have
wonderful traditional sweets that you can sample and lots of pottery.
These shops and the apartments above them still reflect the
style of samurai days, when it was forbidden for commoners to look down upon a
passing samurai lord, and so, narrow, slatted windows were installed to enable
the residents to peek down.
Before you enter the main hall of Kiyomizu-dera, there is a
small Shinto shrine called the Jishu shrine, which is one of the most popular
in Japan. This is because it houses the
deities devoted to love and marriage.
There are two rocks set up so that if you can make it from one to the
other safely with your eyes closed then your wish in love will be granted. One may say their love’s name over and over as
they approach the second stone in order that love and marriage may be
guaranteed. I witnessed one Japanese
girl perform this successfully while I was there.
Many omamori (talismans) are sold for good marriage, finding
love, and safe delivery. Enshrined here
are the legendary rabbit, who lost his skin after many deceitful deeds, and the
deity Okuninushi-no-mikoto, who pitied the rabbit and led him to repent.
Kiyomizu-dera is the “Clear Water Temple” and is one of the
oldest temples in Kyoto. This temple
occupies a good portion of the mountainside and offers a fantastic view of the
city of Kyoto. It is one of the few
Buddhist temples with a cypress bark roof reminiscent of the time when it
served as part of an imperial palace. The
dragon statue at its entrance, from which water pours, is a place to purify
yourself before entering by first grasping the cup handle with your right hand
(the clean hand) and washing your left and then switching hands and repeating
on the right. Finally, you can purify
the inside of your body by drinking the water (if desired).
Here you can pray to the Bodhisattva Kannon (a Buddhist
savior figure representing compassion).
Kannon is sort of a go-between, who will represent you before Buddha or
God.
At the main hall, the tragic story of Yoshitsune and Benkei
is remembered through statues of Benkei’s oversized staff and geta (Japanese
sandals), which one can lift for luck and healing. It is said that after a blind blacksmith
regained his sight after praying at Kiyomizu-dera, he created these statues in
iron as a thank you offering to the temple.
All over the mountain there are small Jizo statues with
small red bibs on. Jizo is the
Bodhisattva who protects children, travelers and the dead, so as wind the
mountain paths, there is always a Jizo watching. Jizo is so popular that many times you will
see these red bibs on other deities like the foxes of Fushimi Inari
shrine—another instance of the blending of Shinto and Buddhism.
Well that’s all I have for today. If you have any questions about any of these
places, please ask away and I’ll try to find out the answer. This week, we are going to Hiroshima, which
promises to be a fascinating and somber trip as we listen to the victims of the
atomic bomb. I will probably take this
time to also do a fun excerpt on Tokyo culture to give you a greater
perspective of Japan outside of Kyoto and following that, hopefully my
interesting and awesome food commentary will finally be done! Thanks again for reading and see you next
week!
