Victimage in the Kojiki of Japan
by Barbara
Mikolajewska in cooperation with F.E.J. Linton
| Copyright © 2005 by |  , New Haven, CT 06511-2208 USA. | |
| First Internet Edition. All rights reserved. | ||
Part I
In the place of pure beginning
Chapter 3
In worship of Ama-terasu
Amano-Iwato, the cave from within which the Sun Goddess Ama-terasu was successfully restored to the world, and Gyobo Iwaya, the cave where the eight-hundred myriad deities assembled to plan their restoration strategy, are situated on either side of the river Amano-Yasugawara, in a heavily wooded preserve that is both maintained by, and home to, the shrine complex Amano-Iwato Jinja, the “Boulder Door of Heaven” shrine. Indirectly, by naming itself after the cave to which Ama-terasu had withdrawn – and in which, therefore, her spirit somehow still resides – this shrine complex manifests its purpose as the worship of Ama-terasu. Indeed, instead of physically housing a shintai, or sacred object in which the spirit of its kami can reside, centrally enshrined behind the altar within the main shrine building, this shrine takes as its shintai its entire namesake, the whole cave Amano-Iwato, as a holy place still suffused with the spirit of Ama-terasu.
Of course, nothing the visitor meets upon entering these grounds hints at this unusual geophysical form of shintai. One passes under perfectly ordinary torii (Plate 1a), one comes across a perfectly ordinary ablution well (Plate 1b), perfectly ordinary stone lanterns (Plate 1c) line one’s path; even the kiosks plastered with announcement-posters (Plate 1f), like the trees or stones (Plate 1d) reverentially decorated with sacred ropes, could be found at any shrine. More unusual, though, is to encounter a statue of Tajikarao (Plate 1e), his strong arms hoisting overhead, as if in a pose from the Yokagura dance drama, the massive boulder he has just extricated from the mouuth of the cave Amano-Iwato; and more unusual still are the interiors of the various shrine buildings themselves.
For these interiors, each in its own unique way, resemble the stage of the Takachiho Jinja Kagura-den and call to mind the sacred space before the mouth of Amano-Iwato where the first Kagura was danced. Within the central portico of the first main shrine building (Plate 2a), for example, behind the large, grate-lidded offerings coffer, on a table, accompanied by food offerings, and behind a gohei, there stands a mirror (Plate 2d) as if ready once more (Plate 2c) to capture the Sun Goddess’s spirit, as did the very similar mirror revealed within the mouth of the stage-cave when Tajikarao finally removes the boulder; and the adjacent portico to the right shelters an enormous drum (Plate 2b), an oversize cousin of the smaller one that accompanies the nightly Takachiho Yokagura.
In another shrine building (Plate 4a), this one exceedingly dark, a point of light deep in the darkness (Plate 4b) turns out to be a tiny window (Plate 4c), looking out in the direction, probably, of Amano-Iwato itself, with a mirror set before it, also brimming with light (Plate 4d), the whole impression being that of a recreation of the original scene before the cave, in the cold and the dark, when the ancient gods gathered to watch Amë-nö-uzume’s marvelous dance and its miraculous effect. The entire shrine complex, for that matter, seems prepared at any time to host a reenactment, in the form of Yokagura, complete with requisite onlookers, of that event of long ago, with the expectation of a comparably miraculous outcome today.
Plate
1. Amano-Iwato Jinja: the shrine grounds
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a
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b
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c
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d
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e
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f
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a. Entrance torii,
with a sacred shimenawa rope suspended between its uprights symbolically
separating the secular world from the sacred.
b. Shimenawa and
other decorations festooning the ablution well.
c. One of the stone lanterns
lining the path to the sanctuary buildings.
d. A rock with the sacred
rope.
e. Tajikaro after removing
the rock from the cave.
f. Kiosk plastered with
Yokagura posters.
Plate 2. The first shrine building
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a
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b
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c
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d
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a. The main shrine building,
as seen through entrance-way, with offering box under the central portico, and
drum within the right hand portico.
b. Close-up: the drum, with
a purification wand standing before it.
c. Close-up: mirror with
gohei.
d. Foreground: table with
offerings and two guardian creatures (shishi?); background: mirror (2c) with
gohei.
Plate 3. A second shrine building
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a
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b
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a. A second shrine building
(foreground), with the same characteristic roof ornamentation as the first
(rear).
b. Inside the second shrine
building: mirror and offerings.
Plate 4. A third shrine building
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a
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b
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c
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d
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a. A third shrine building
(left).
b. The proverbial light at
the end of the tunnel?
c. The light (partial close-up):
the sun? a mirror?
d. The light (full
close-up): a mirror; and a curtained window, giving out onto the twin caves.
A pleasant, meandering, woodland path, more or less following the course of the heavenly river Amano-Yasugawara (Plate 5), leads in fifteen minutes or so from the main complex of shrine buildings of Amano-Iwato Jinja to the sacred cave Gyobo Iwaya.
A signpost along the way indicates the approximate location of the cave Amano-Iwato, across the river and off-limits to the casual visitor. Finally, just as a cavernous opening in the hillside comes into view, with a sacred straw shimenawa rope stretched across it from one side to the other, a sequence of torii signals the end of the path and the sacred presence of the cave Gyobo Iwaya (Plate 5c). Already before the first of these torii, and on as far as the very floor of the cave itself, the ground on either side of the path is densely bedecked with innumerable low cairns (Plate 6), little stone towers built by visiting believers using small stones brought with them expressly for this purpose, hoping in this way to manifest their worship and to realize their prayers.
Within the cave, surrounded by these cairns, there stand two shrine-cabinets: one, set rather far back, is virtually inaccessible; the other (Plate 7b), closer to the end of the path, houses yet another great round mirror (Plate 7c), accompanied by flasks and dishes bearing offerings of sake and food, by gohei, and by other items representative of the objects gathered and prepared as offerings to Ama-terasu by the gods who had assembled here during their quest to entice her out of the nearby cave Amano-Iwato.
Plate 5. The way to Gyobo Iwaya.
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a
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b
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c
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a. The heavenly river
Ama-no-Yasugawara.
b. A bridge over the river.
c. A general view of the
interior of the cave Gyobo Iwaya.
Plate 6. Gyobo Iwaya.
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a
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b
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c
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a. From the mouth of the
Gyobo Iwaya, looking out at the path leading within.
b. The path leading
within first Gyobo Iwaya.
c. Close-up of one of the
cairns.
Plate 7. Within Gyobo Iwaya.
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a
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b
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c
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a. A lantern.
b. The nearer
shrine-cabinet.
c. Close-up: the mirror
within the shrine-cabinet.
The mirrors encountered in the Takachiho Jinja Yokagura performances, in the various shrine buildings of Amano-Iwato Jinja, or in the cave Gyobo Iwaya, are certainly all evocative of the Sun Goddess Ama-terasu and of the original mirror, prepared at the behest of the eight-hundred myriad deities by the heavenly stone-cutting goddess Isi-köri-dome-nö-mikötö, that captured Ama-terasu’s spirit, but they themselves are accorded no special reverence in that connection. The original mirror, however, is another matter. For it is this mirror, endowed with all her spiritual attributes, and therefore serving as her earthly spiritual replica, that Ama-terasu bestowed upon her grandson Ninigi, along with two other imperial regalia, when she had him descend upon the earth to take up earthly rule. The three imperial regalia were jointly to empower his rule on earth, but the mirror, in particular, he was to worship as he would worship Ama-terasu herself.
. Originally with Ninigi, this mirror was then with Ninigi’s great-grandson Jimmu when he left Kyushu for Honshu to become the first Yamatö emperor of Japan, and was enshrined, through successive emperors after Jimmu, within the Imperial Palace, which was where the sacred rites of worshipping the Sun Goddess took place in continuing fulfillment of the sacred obligation Ama-terasu first placed upon Ninigi. Indeed, there were particular rituals in the worship of Ama-terasu that only the emperor, as the highest priest and sole intermediary with Ama-terasu on behalf of his subjects, could perform, a situation that may be the obverse of the coin whose face is the belief that imperial power comes to the emperor, through the sacred rites of enthronement, only by direct transmission from the Sun Goddess.
Eventually, however, some time around the beginning of the first century, the Sun Goddess made manifest her will that the mirror, and the attendant worship of Ama-terasu, be relocated instead to a Grand Shrine to be erected at Ise (Plate 8), and it is there that this mirror was consequently enshrined, there to remain to this day, a most highly revered object of worship, carefully protected within the inner sanctuary of the shrine Naikū (Plate 8d), so holy that no ordinary person may even pass through the outer gate of Naikū, let alone approach the mirror itself, and tended to, as it were, largely only by the abundant food-princess deity Töyö-ukë-bime-nö-kamï, who is enshrined within the inner sanctuary of the nearby shrine Gekū (Plate 8e).
Plate 8. The Grand
Shrine at Ise.
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a
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b
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c
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d
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e
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a. Ise: an ablution well.
b. Ise visitors approaching
the first torii.
c. An Ise priestess ready to
welcome pilgrims with sacred sake.
d. Pilgrims before the main
sanctuary at Naikū.
e. Pilgrims before the main sanctuary at Gekū
