Kyoto. John H. Martin
east, Shijo-dori on the south and Oike-dori on the north form a shopper’s paradise. Here, department stores and specialty shops can please the most avid of consumers, be they connoisseurs of the finest of crafts and of fashion or devotees of the latest in tourist ephemera.
Although modern commercialism abounds within this crowded enclave, traditional pleasures are not overlooked. Each year during July, this area enjoys the annual Gion Festival, when the great Gion carts are pulled by men in traditional attire in memory of the city’s deliverance from a plague many centuries ago. That ceremony begins at the Yasaka Jinja (Yaskaka Shrine), commonly called Gion Shrine, to the east of the river, and that is where this walk will also begin.
The main two-story gateway (Ro-mon) leading to Yasaka Shrine.
1 YASAKA SHRINE (GION SHRINE)
Yasaka Shrine (or Gion Shrine) is one of the most important Shinto shrines in Kyoto, and is much beloved by its citizens. The shrine is located near downtown at the intersection of Shijo-dori and Higashi-oji-dori. It is open at all times. No admission fee is charged.
As the shrine to the spirit of the kami (deity) who is honored at the great Gion Festival, Yasaka Shrine is the starting point for the festival procession that winds its way through the streets of Kyoto every July 17th. It is also a special center for worship on New Year’s Day and on other traditional occasions.
Reputedly founded in 656 AD, before the creation of Kyoto as a city, the shrine is dedicated to the Shinto deities Susa-no-o-mikoto (the wayward brother of Amaterasu, the supposed progenitor of the Emperor’s line), his spouse Inada-hime-no-mikoto and their five sons and three daughters. It became an important center of worship after Kyoto was established as the capital of Japan in the 790s since epidemics were often rampant, and Susa-no-o was regarded as the Shinto god of medicine. An epidemic in 869 AD led to the origin of the Gion Festival, when thousands prayed to Susa-no-o for relief from the spread of the plague. The head priest of the shrine led a procession of citizens through the city as a supplication to the god and, when the plaque ended, this event became a popular festival that has continued ever since.
Under the movement known as Ryobu (Dual) Shinto, beginning in the 800s, an attempt was made by the Buddhist clergy to show that the Shinto deities (whom the mass of the people then still preferred to the Buddhist gods) were but temporary manifestations in Japan of the major Buddhas and Bodhisattva. Thus, an amalgamation of the two faiths developed, and most Shinto shrines came under the control of Buddhist monks. Even the architecture of many shrines (the Yasaka Shrine, for example) took on the style of Buddhist religious buildings. With the restoration of Imperial rule in 1868, Buddhism was forced to separate from Shinto, and Shinto shrines reverted to a non-Buddhist form—albeit certain practices and architectural styles of Buddhism were retained. Thus Yasaka Shrine became solely a Shinto shrine once more, although its Buddhist overtones remain in its architecture.
You approach the shrine from Shijo-dori by means of a brief set of steps that lead to the Ro-mon, the main two-story gateway of the Muromachi period (1497), with its vermilion posts and white walls. A Shinto guardian in each bay on the sides of the entryway stands sentinel against any evil influences that might impinge on these sacred grounds. Once beyond the entry gateway, an additional brief set of steps, guarded by stone koma-inu (Korean lion-dogs), leads to a torii and the main area of the shrine.
Within the shrine grounds there are a number of buildings, both large and small, dedicated to various Shinto kami (deities). The main portion of the shrine has a roofed purification water basin ahead on the right. To its left, in the center of the precinct, is the roofed Heiden (Offertory), while the important Honden (Spirit Hall) is further to the left. Beyond the Heiden to the right is the kagura, the roofed ceremonial stage for religious performances. On the northern edge of the precincts are the storage buildings for the Gion Festival mikoshi (portable shrines). Most of the shrine buildings date from a 1654 reconstruction, and some of the mikoshi storage units are enhanced with paintings commissioned by worshippers of the shrine deities.
Worshippers bowing before the shingle-roofed Honden at Yasaka Shrine.
The Honden (Spirit Hall), the most important structure of the shrine, is a single-story building with a half-hipped and a half-gabled roof covered with thick wood shingles. This main structure is painted vermilion and is 69 feet (21 m) long by 57 feet (17 m) deep. Three long ropes are suspended from the front overhanging roof, with a metal pan-shaped bell at the top of the ropes. These ropes are pulled by worshippers to sound the bell so as to attract the attention of the shrine’s kami before bowing with hands held in prayer. On the south side of the grounds, a second entrance to the shrine is through a 30 foot (9 m) tall stone torii from 1646, one of the largest such Shinto stone gateways in Japan. Beyond it, a large vermilion gate with Shinto protecting archers on each side of the entryway has gifts of matted casks of saké stacked to its rear.
The Yasaka Shrine is much frequented by the citizens of Kyoto, some wearing modern dress, others adorned in traditional kimono. One of the most charming sights is to see recently born infants (often held by proud grandmothers in formal, traditional attire) being brought for registration at the shrine— or children in formal kimono or hakama when they are brought to the shrine in November at the time of the Shichi-go-san (7–5–3) Festival for blessings by shrine attendants.
Although there are frequent fair days at the Yasaka Shrine, a number of festivals are outstanding, the New Year festival at the beginning of January and the Gion Festival in July in particular. Okera Mairi is the name of the New Year festival, and on New Year’s Eve an herb called okera is burned in the lanterns at the shrine from 8:00 p.m. through to the dawn of New Year’s Day. It was customary in the past to come to the shrine with a thin rope, which was then lit from the lanterns, or to obtain a few embers in a pot, which could then be taken home to light the cooking fire of the New Year (before modern kitchen stoves). If one lit one’s cooking fire from the sacred shrine fire and cooked zoni (rice cake boiled with vegetables) on New Year’s Day, health and happiness were bound to ensue throughout the New Year. Hopes for a good New Year can be further insured by attending the shrine on New Year’s Day to pray. On this occasion, traditional dress is often worn by women, and maiko (apprentice geisha) attend in black kimono with a white pattern. Maiko also place ears of rice in their hair to mark this festive occasion.
The annual Gion Festival features a colorful parade of floats and participants dressed in traditional attire.
On February 3–4, the Setsubun celebration marks the traditional end of the coldest part of winter. Beans are scattered in temples and shrines to drive out demons and to bring in good luck for the new season. The ceremony is celebrated at many temples, but at Yasaka Shrine an evening bonfire brings the bean scattering festivities to a close. Another festival, held on May 2, is the Chatsu Dochu ceremony: each spring prior to 1868, the Shogun required the tea dealers of Uji to present the first tea leaves of the year to his provisioners packed in large ceramic jars. In remem brance of this event, large tea jars are paraded from the Kennin-ji Templealong Yamato-oji-dorito Shijo-dori and thus to Yasaka Shrine by bearers in costumes of the past.
The Gion Festival is the most spectacular of the shrine events. The first ceremony to mark the festival begins on July 2, when the shrine mikoshi (portable shrines) are taken from their storage sheds and are blessed for the coming festival (11:30 a.m.). On July 10, the most important shrine mikoshi is carried to the Kamo River for a ceremonial cleansing and purification by the chief priest of the shrine. Afterwards, the mikoshi is carried back to the shrine on the shoulders of the young men who took it to the river (7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.). On that same day, celebrants in traditional garb welcome three mikoshi of Yasaka Shrine as the Gion Festival season starts (5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.). With lanterns on long poles, they accompany the mikoshi to City Hall, at the intersection of Oike-dori and Kawaramachi-dori, and there dance groups perform at 6:00