Osu Vol.3 -Temples at times, strongholds at other times-

The construction of Nagoya castle in 1610 led to the redevelopment of Nagoya city. Osu, which was located between Nagoya castle and Nagoya port, must have been the first priority for the redevelopment as the main gate of Nagoya. The lord at the time ordered some temples and shrines to move into Osu in rebuilding the town in order to protect the area from enemies. Buddhist temples or Shinto shrines at the time were regarded as citadels or fortresses in case of emergencies. Osu Kannon temple and Banshouji temple were also moved with such a purpose.

The peach can protect you from evil

As I wrote at the previous journal, I dropped by a few temples and shrines last Saturday. I’ll let you show one of them.

Do you know a nursery tale, “momotaro“, which is the story about a boy fighting orges.

Enshrined spirits rest in peace

I was supposed to write an article about Jomon era. Oh my God…since I now have a fever, I can’t go to my office to get photos of Dogu from a book with the scanner in my office. Sorry, Mugami, I hope you would wait for me for the time being.

Instead of Jomon era, I’ll introduce Yasukuni shrine to you.

Two shrines in Osaka have their stories.

Last week, I had a happy time talking with Mugami. Thank you so much, Mugami, and I’m looking forward to talking with you again next Thursday.

While talking, I promised one thing with him. It’s to write an article about joumon era. I was going to the Nagoya museum today in order to learn joumon era. In the museum, they exhibit kaizuka, in which people in joumon era threw away a lot of thing, such as bones of animals or fish, shells, broken plates made from earth. Unfortunately, one of my client had trouble and it made me run back and forth today. Sorry, Mugami, I’ll get next chance to learn joumon era and try to write an article.

Instead of joumon era, I’ll put other topic on Japan up in this blog. I’ve already written that I went to the concert of Eric Martin the other day. Before the concert, I dropped by some shrines in Osaka. Osaka gokoku jinja and Osaka tenmanguu.

Maybe it’s quite difficult to introduce gokoku jinja to you in detail because gokoku jinja is deeply related to World War 2. I was born in 1974, so I have no experience in wars. However, there are still many people sufffering from side effects about the war. I don’t know if my descriptions will get wrong, and someone might feel bad. I’d like you to let me know when I was wrong.

gokoku jinja (by the way, I don’t know if I should choose ‘is’ or ‘are’ when I put Japanese words on my sentences as subjects) is built in order to enshrine people died for wars or for Japan. Basically, each gokoku jinja is established in each prefectures, however, some prefectures such as Hokkaido have 2 or 3 gokoku jinja. Long time ago, before we adopted the system ‘prefecture’, we had other way to divide our country. This old custom affected the number of gokoku jinja as I said. Incidentally, there is no gokoku jinja in Tokyo and instead of it, there is yasukuni jinja. You can tell the defference between gokoku jinja and yasukuni jinja. The former is the place where only Japanese are enshrined. The latter is the place where not only Japanese but also other people from other countries are enshrined. The gorvenment used to make people from other countries change their nationalities into Japan around when the Pacific War. In yasukuni, such people are enshrined.

Some people at that time(maybe even now) think that people died in wars for Japan or died for Japan will become eirei, as the word treating died people who did great things while they were alive, especially did great things for our country. People enshrined in gokoku jinja and yasukuni jinja are treated as eirei.

After Osaka gokoku jinja, I went to Osaka tenmanguu. You can see many tenmanguu at many places in Japan. Michizane Sugawara, the person who lived in heian era, is enshrined in each tenmanguu. It is said that Michizane Sugawara was so smart. I guess I should choose ‘genius’ rather than the word ‘smart.’ Every year, people, especially people who want to pass the entrance examinations, visit tenmanguu in order to share his intelligence. I’ve ever written the article when I visited kitano tenmanguu in Kyoto. Every time I visit there, I write my wish about examinations which I’m going to take on ema which is wooden board.

There is one legend about Michizane Sugawara. He was so smart(genius?) that he was promoted so fast in the gorvenment, what we call, as one of bureaucrats at that time. The power struggle ofcourse happened at that time. He was also involved with it because of his intelligent. The higher his postion in the government got, the bigger other people’s envy grew. At last he got suspected that he robbed many authorities from the emperor, and he got sentenced. After he died, a few emperors died continuously and one building of the government in Kyoto was hit by a stroke of lightning. By this lightning, some bureaucrats who seemed to be related to the conspiracy about Michizane were died. People at that time thought Michizane‘s anger let this happen. He treated as raijin(God of thunder) since. People built shrines in order to enshrine Michizane as tenjin sama and they call the shrines tenmanguu.

I got each signature and stamp at Osaka gokoku jinja and Osaka tenmanguu. I’ll show you photos of these shrines as well.

Osaka gokoku jinja
This is the gate called torii. All shrines have their own torii(I guess).

This is the main hall.

Osaka tenmanguu

This is Osaka gokoku jinja‘s signature. I’m proud of the writer in Aichi gokoku jinja. His signature is better than Osaka‘s. (The left side one is Osaka‘s and the right one is Aichi‘s)

This is Osaka tenmanguu‘s signature. I like it as well.

Hatsumoude in Kyoto Vol.1

Hi, All! I’m so sorry I couldn’t write any article in this blog. This is the first article this year! hihi…

How’s your new year? Me, as you know, nothing changes…hihihi

In Japan, we go to temples(called “tera”) or shrines(called “jinjya”) to pray our first wish from January first to third. It’s called “hatsumoude”.

I went to Kyoto for hatsumoude either. This time I’m supposed to write about it.

The first shrine I went to was “Kitano-Tenmanguu”, which dedicates God of learning. God’s name is “Michizane Sugawara”, who lived in Heian era. I go there to pray every year.

This is “Hondou”, which means the main floor of the shrine. You can pray there with throwing some coin, which call “saisen”.

It was 7:30 a.m, so people visiting to prey was not so much.

After praying in Hondo, I proceeded and bought “ema”. “Ema” is a sort of wooded plate. Cow, which is this year’s oriental zodiac, is painted in front of the plate. You can write your mark of new year in the backside of the plate.

Me, I wrote like that as my mark, “I want to be able to use English more and more and more and more than now.” ofcourse it’s written in Japanese…

This is “ema”….

And then you bring the ema for the place called “ema-kakedokoro”. “ema-kakedokoro” is the place to hang “ema”. These emas keep hanging the entire year and are going to be burned in the last day of the year.

This is “ema-kakedokoro”

Let’s try it when you come to Japan! Maybe your hope come true…hihihi

To be continued…