Hon Sumiyoshi Shrine, Kobe
Yesterday we visited Honumiyoshi (本住吉神社 ) shrine. It is located just next to Sumiyoshi JR station.
All the Sumiyoshi shrines (the main one is Sumiyoshi Taisha in Osaka) worship three sea and sailing related deities – the Sumiyoshi Sanjin together with the legendary Empress Jingū (who allegedly waged a successful military invasion in Korea in 2nd – 3rd century). Interestingly, the deities are most probably three deified stars from the Orion constellation (which in ancient times was used by sailors as an important navigation sign).
As for the name – Sumiyoshi (住吉) – one of the possible translations is – happy (吉) dwelling (住) which (I think) makes sense for a shrine place.
This is the haiden (the oratory) of the shrine:
There were several really big stone lanterns. Here is one of them:
Also there were many additional small shrines (sessha or massha). You can find most of them to the right of the shrine alongside a small alley submerged in green (mainly bamboo but also wintersweet which bloom in yellow and have intensive scent with pinch of vanilla). First the sessha alley:
And second the wintersweet (I mistakenly took it for a yellow sakura tree last week but when it is fully bloomed the difference is obvious (thank you jtomi and Zichi for pointing out the difference)):
Here is a small gallery with selection of the sesshas (the bright red belongs to Inari the god of fertility and rice you always can recognize it by the two foxes in front of it – Inari’s messangers):
And here are the rest of the sesshas:
As for the main temple the golden decoration was particularly impressive:
Another particular thing about this shrine is the fact that the people were entering and reaching the main building with their cars. I have never seen such thing in other temples but apparently there was no problem here (may be it is a kind of special local tradition).
The rest are mainly pictures focusing on details so please enjoy :) :
The rope of the of the shrine’s bell and glimpse toward the interior of the shrine:
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The wooden wish tablets (ema):
The Inari’s fox and the “golden” locker of the sessha:
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And the last one – the small stone pond:
7 Comments on Hon Sumiyoshi Shrine, Kobe
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In Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji, the Taisha shrine is used as an important stage in some chapters concerning the Akashi Lady.
http://www.taleofgenji.org/sumiyoshi.html
Hi Zichi,
Thank you for the information.
Indeed lately I am quite interested in everything Japanese but especially religion, tradition, culture.
I even ended up this Sunday in “Random walk” looking for Shinto religion books but the only one I found there I already had it in my library.
I think you will find that the head Sumiyoshi shrine is the one is Osaka. Originally founded by the Hata and other “foreign” clans who settled Naniwa. Jingu was added much later.
Thank you Jake.
It was my mistake (that the main Sumiyoshi shrine is in Tokyo) – I corrected it.
By the way do you know a good online (or other) reference for the different Shinto shrines “orders” or “denominations”?
The Encyclopedia of Shinto is the first place to try
http://eos.kokugakuin.ac.jp/modules/xwords/
Thank you Jake.
I knew about it. It is really great site but the only disappointing thing was that there were no kanji shown for the terminology.
But this time (when I revisited it) I found the glossary:
http://eos.kokugakuin.ac.jp/Alphabet/alphabet.html
So now I am complete :)