On Friday and Saturday, July 23 and 24, there was a Matsuri (festival) with dancing at the Shinto shrine Magome-Hachimansha (間米八幡社) at the South-West of Fujita Health University. It is one of the magical places surrounding our university, and bicycling past it at night, with the lights, music, and dancing, it was even more special. I walked up toward there, and found people, many of whom in kimono, dancing around a platform, as is usual at matsuris. Although not now, in the past I have joined such dances, and it is very enjoyable.
Figure 1. The shrine as I saw it, bicycling by.
The shrine is only 100 m from where I work, and if it weren’t for the trees that surround it, I would be able see it from my window. The below, including the legends under the photographs, tries to summarize the information that I could find about the Magome-Hachimansha (間米八幡社) shrine.
I thought that the shrine’s name meant something like “shrine of eight banners located between the ricefields,” although there seem to be only four flag-poles and not eight on the shrine complex. Turns out, as Wikipedia explains, that Hachiman is the name of a deity:
“In Japanese religion, Yahata (八幡神, ancient Shinto pronunciation) formerly in Shinto and later commonly known as Hachiman (八幡神, Japanese Buddhist pronunciation) is the syncretic divinity of archery and war, incorporating elements from both Shinto and Buddhism.
In Shinto religion, he is mortally Emperor Ōjin (応神天皇, Ōjin Tennō) by birth who reigned in the 3rd–4th century and the son of Empress Jingū (神功皇后, Jingū-kōgō), later became deified and identified by legend as “Yahata-no-kami” meaning “Kami [God] of Eight Banners“, referring to the eight heavenly banners that signaled the birth of the divine and deified emperor, and is also called Hondawake (誉田別命). His messenger is the dove, symbolizes both the bow and arrow found in samurai banners associated to him where he is called “Yumiya Hachiman” (弓矢八幡).
Since ancient times Hachiman has been worshiped by farmers as the god of agriculture and by fishermen, who hoped that he would fill their nets with many fish.“
Thus Emperor Ōjin (Wikipedia), more than 1500 years ago, became the deity Hachiman after his death. The stone inscription in Fig. 3 seems to say that Emperor Ōjin is enshrined here, but that probably is only in spirit (or would they have enshrined some objects who belonged to him? I will try to find out),
What also is special is that this shrine has a connection with water (namely with rain, Figure 3), as did Fujita-sensei, the founder of our university. Notable is also the connection between Fujita Health University and this shrine, as the university has been a sponsor (Figures 4, 5).
Figure 2. The Magome-Hachimansha (間米八幡社) shrine is located between trees at the South East of Fujita Health University. The pilars with the double crossbar (Torii, 鳥居) at the stairs represent the entrance. Directly behind the trees surrounding the shrine is the university.
Figure 3. This is a stone at the entrance, placed there in 1982, which includes saying: “History of the Hachiman shrine. Founded in August of the 3rd year of the Shoho era (1646). Enshrined deity emperor Ojin. In 1799, when it didn’t rain for three months, after praying by the people in this region protected by this god [Emperor Ojin], it rained for three days and three nights. To show their gratitude, they added a new roof to the main building to protect it from rain.”
Figure 4. Near the entrance, as in many temples and shrines, there is a place for washing your hands as a symbol of purification. However, probably because of corona, there is no water now and they did remove the wooden ladles, so it can’t be used presently. The letters (kanji) say “heart wash (senshin, 心洗),” so the washing of your hands is a symbol for the washing of your heart.
Figure 5. Next to the handwashing place, there is a stone inscription which includes saying: “Offering. Fujita Health University. Fujita Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. Toushin Kosan Co., Ltd. Shoyone Hachiman Shrine parishioners. October 18, 2004.”
Figure 6. This is the main complex. It is surrounded by small stone pillars.
Figure 7. This is the main shrine building, with two lions in front of it, and the university in the back.
Figure 8. This is one of the lions. The inscription says “hounou” (offering)
Figure 9. This is the wooden inscription above the entrance of the main building. The top horizontal text 納奉 means “offering.” The big vertical text in the middle says the name of the shrine “Hachimansha.” The vertical text at the left is someone’s name, again from the Aoyama family (see Fig. 11), and says (the pronunciation of the first name is a guess) “Sanesaburo Aoyama, Tokyo.” The vertical text at the right says “October 12, Taisho era 15th year,” which is 1927 in Western year counting. Maybe Mr. Aoyama made an enormous donation to the shrine, but I will try to find out more about this.
Figure 10. This text says offertory box (賽銭箱, saisenbako), and here you can donate some coins. Especially 5 Yen coins are common donations, because the Japanese words for “five yen” are “go en” which sounds like “goen,” the Japanese word for “auspicious connection” or “good fortune.”
Figure 10. These are the before-mentioned small pillars surrounding the main complex. They have names on them, in the set of pillars shown here all seemingly of the same family “Aoyama” who may have built or sponsored the building of several parts of the shrine complex.
Figure 11. This stone pillar is the biggest one and stands alone. It says “Gotaitenkinen” Imperial ceremony commemoration.
Figure 12. This is a smaller building in the back. Usually, these extra buildings are for a special target group (for example, the diseased), but I don’t know what this building is dedicated to.
Figure 13. The white building in the middle forms a complex with the main building, surrounded by this wooden fence. Between them is a pebble “garden” but it seems not so well maintained currently. As far as I know, these extra parts of the temple can be used for getting extra close to the gods by people who have extra reason for that and have to organize that with the priests. I heard that it can also be expensive, but that may depend on the shrine.
Figure 14. The timeless elegant beauty of Japanese wooden shrines. It is amazing that they kept a similar style for over 1000 years.
This is a summary of the curriculum vitae (CV) of Dr. Yasumasa Ishida, M.D., Ph.D., Independent Associate Professor, Laboratory of Functional Genomics and Medicine, Division of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Nara, Japan. He will give a presentation at Fujita Health University.
This is a summary of the curriculum vitae (CV) of Prof. Nina Grace Jablonski, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University. She will give a presentation at Fujita Health University.
