d go buy a daruma doll! These dolls are small and round with no arms or legs and usually for sale at Japanese Buddhist temples. The dolls have painted faces but no eyes. This is so that when you buy a daruma doll you can fill in one eye and make a wish. The other eye is filled in when the wish comes true. They are often used as a motivation device for this reason.
Daruma dolls (達磨) are based on a Buddhist sage named Daruma, in Japanese, although he is also known as Bodhidharma. Daruma is usually depicted bald with a beard. He travelled through China (probably from India) and founded the Shōrinji temple where he gathered many students. He eventually decided the best way to reach enlightenment was through meditation. So he spent nine years meditating facing a wall in a cave. During this time his legs shrivelled to mere stumps (thus the round bottom of the doll). But just before he reached enlightenment he fell asleep! So, just like I am sure any of us would do in this situation, he angrily ripped off his eyelids and threw them away determined to reach his goal. It is said that a magical bush grew where his eyelids landed whose leaves can be brewed into tea that will get rid of sleepiness. Daruma noticed that his disciples were also having trouble concentrating long enough to reach enlightenment. He developed a series of exercises to help them focus that influenced the martial arts. Because of his incredible self-discipline, Daruma is considered the patron saint of determination.
The Suwa Pillar Festival, onbashira-matsuri, in the Nagano region of Japan, when briefly explained to those who lack any substantial knowledge of Japanese culture, sounds bizarre. “Once every six year
s, sixteen trees in the mountains are selected to be erected at the Suwa Shrine as pillars. After the trees are cut, they’re slid down a steep mountain, and men jump on them and get injured or even die. See, look at this video! As the trees are brought through town, the community hosts a sort of carnival, with thousands partying in the streets and cheering on the trees. Then religious officials erect them at the Suwa Shrine, selling the former pillars to construction sites, and the cycle continues.”
Strange as the concept sounds at a cursory glance, and although scholars recognize the danger inherent in some of its elements (Kitazawa 112), the festival is ripe with meaning and religious significance, and every step is carefully planned and meticulously executed. The festival dates back over 1200 years, when the kami Takeminakata is rumoured to have aided the general Sakanoue Tamuramaro in war (Gerbert 328).
The sixteen trees used as pillars to stand in the Shinto Suwa Shrine are carefully selected by experts; the festival then follows the processes roughly outlined above. These various steps of the festival, carried out according to very strict time guidelines, symbolize a transition from the eternal spirit world of the kami into the temporal world of human beings. As the onbashira-matsuri progresses, the festivities also change drastically in nature, beginning as sombre and controlled and eventually becoming wild and disorderly (Gerbert 330-334). Every item used in the festival holds some significance and demonstrates the respect the practitioners hold for the world of the kami in the mountains (for example, priests must purify all axes used). Ritual purity is a necessity: the matsuri finds its structure by differentiating between the sacred and pure realm of the kami and the impurity outside of the festival. Onbashira-matsuri also presents demonstrations of unity through difference: the two styles of rope used to pull the trees are understood to be male and female, and the fact that they work together shows the complementary nature of two ostensible opposites (Gerbert 340). Furthermore, the festival reminds participants of their connection to the earth, bringing those who would not spend much time outside deep into the mountains and into close contact with elements of nature (Gerbert 369).
The kami are the main consideration in the festival: all members of the Suwa community work together to prepare songs and dances to ensure that the kami are entertained throughout the festival (Gerbert 335-339). Furthermore, when a man is killed while riding the pillar down the mountain in the portion of the festival called shimosha ki-otoshi, the justification for the death is simply that kami took the man (Gerbert 343). Spaces usually remaining in the realm of humans, like roads, sit at the mercy of the kami during the onbashira-matsuri and lose their regular functions (Gerbert 374).
The “carnival” portion of the festival, when the trees are pulled through town towards the shrine, demonstrates an intriguing juxtaposition of orderly and chaotic. Reactions to the trees are similar to reactions to marathon runners: the audience celebrates, waves flags and
takes photos of the trees (Gerbert 347). Though the festivities follow very specific guidelines, practitioners revel in the streets, closing down their businesses, abandoning their clothes or wearing ornate historical costumes, imbibing sake and eating insatiably (Gerbert 344-346). The presence of the kami in the town opens up opportunities for members of the community to act like children, forgetting the rules that otherwise provide such careful structure in their lives (Gerbert 374).
Evidently, the Suwa Pillar Festival stands as an impressive example of many key aspects of Japanese religion that we’re studying: the importance of ritual purity, the reverence held for nature and by proxy the kami, and elements of carnival existing amongst orderliness.
at are sold as lucky charms during the New Year’s festival. Hamaya are long white bamboo arrows that ward off misfortune and attract good luck. During the Edo period (1603 to 1868) they were also given as gifts to celebrate the arrival of a male baby, usually paired with decorative bows, or hamayumi (破魔弓). Hamaya and hamayumi are still used to consecrate and purify a new house, which is done by placing these symbolic weapons in the southeast and northwest corners of the home, as these directions are susceptible to evil.
s, but also as an offering of entertainment to the gods. It involves bolting down a 220-meter-long straight track at full gallop while attempting to hit 3 targets set up on the left-hand side. The targets are 80 meters apart, and the ite (archers), garbed in full 13th-century hunting gear, use forked arrows designed to incapacitate prey. Yabusame generally demonstrates the skills of about eight to twelve archers, each requiring at least 5 years of practice in order to participate.
therwise normal temple is the vast number of small child-like statues placed neatly in rows along the street, visible to any passers-by. These little stone people are not at all unique to this temple, but are found throughout Japan. Known as mizuko Jizō, each of these little guys represents a dead child, more often than not the product of abortion, though may also be representative of a child who has died through miscarriage, stillbirth, or who has died shortly after birth. By dressing it in a little red knitted hat and a bib, giving it a pinwheel and flowers, the mother or family is miniaturizing the child who never was. What is also important is that this child is given a name, sometimes a Buddhist name, and others a name which the purchaser of this Jizō has chosen. This being said, the more one dresses it up like one would a child, the more the statue looks like a child and less like a monk, however the statue is supposed to be both of these entities simultaneously. William Lafleur, in his text entitled “Abortion in Japan”, explains this simultaneous imagery is of utmost importance, calling the Jizō a “stand-in for both the dead infant and the savior figure who supposedly takes care of it in its otherworld journey. The double-take effect—one moment a child and the next a Buddhist saviour in monkish robes—is intentional.” (LaFleur 75) 
Like many things we’ve come across in our studies of Japanese religions, legend has it that sake (酒) originated in China. Sake production and consumption dates back to 2200 B.C.E. and according to the tale, sake was presented to King Wu of Zhou who enjoyed the drink so immensely that he went on to pass a law banning its consumption for fear of, “Sake [being] so good that people will surely be unable to limit their drinking and will ruin themselves and the country” (Naotaka). The ban was said to have been short lived and sake eventually made its way across the sea to Japan in the sixth century. In Japan two forms of sake were produced and these were originally made by masticating rice. Depending on who was doing the chewing, you would either end up with the sake for religious rituals or the sake for social imbibition. Young virgins were the only ones who could produce the former (Naotaka). Yum!
As a derivative of rice – the paramount crop of Japan – sake has become key in many Shinto rituals and has taken on a purifying aspect. Sake production for Shinto use ultimately made its way to the sakadono or shrine’s wine hall where two types of ritual sake (also known as miki) were made: shiroki (light sake) and kuroki (dark sake) (Schumacher). These were produced for the numerous Shinto rituals where sake is the central element, such as naorai where a ritualized collective consumption of sake takes place. The sanku is another example of a ritual practice involving sake and is traditionally done at celebrations that honor a local or household kami. The ceremonial procedure involves sake, rice, cloth, or money being sprinkled about the four corners and the center of a ritual site, as an offering to the kami. A further instance of a sake ceremony traditionally performed at a Shinto shrine is the San-san-kudo (three-three-nine times). This ritual takes place during the Shinto marriage service, and involves the bride and the groom taking three sips of sake each from three nuptial cups as part of the ceremony’s matrimonial binding (Gauntner). (Check out a modern day san-san-kudo at http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Nature produces rice from which we get sake, therefore sake is considered to be, “a blessing from the gods” (Yasutaka). As a lot of sake is consumed because of its purifying nature (and because lets face it, its just that good), rituals must be performed in which sake is the key offering for the kami. This is because, as we have learned, to be virtuous and to show respect and thanks to the kami, their gifts to us must be returned to them. Also, sake is unique because of the light intoxication felt after its consumption. This inebriated feeling is likened to the feeling of being carried off into another world (Yasutaka), perhaps clarifying for us why sake is given such a special status in Shinto rituals.
Before I wrap up, here are a few interesting sake-related things:
The ten virtues of sake from “Mochi-Sake” (Cake and Sake), a kyōgen play:
(borrowed from Naotaka Shinfuku’s “Japanese Culture and Drinking”)
Become a sake expert:
- http://www.esake.com/Workshop/
Learn how to pair sake with food:
- http://www.sake-world.com/
A guide to sake ceramics:
- http://www.e-yakimono.net/
