Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 326

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Notices of Japan, No X.

JUNE,

The money contributions, deposited by the worshipers, are destined for the support of the priests belonging to the temple. The Emtoo priests are called kami nusi, of the landlords of the gods; and in conformity with their name, they reside in houses built within the grounds of their respective temples, where they receive strangers very hospitably. The kami musi marry, and their wives are the priestesses, to whom specific religious rites and duties are allotted; as, for instance, the ceremony of naming children, already described.

But pilgrimage is the grand act of Sintoo devotion, and there are in the empire two-and-twenty shrines commanding such homage; one of these is, how. ever, so much more sacred than the rest, that of it alone is there any occasion to speak. This shrine is the temple of Ten-sio-dai-zin, at Isye, conceived by the great body of ignorant and bigoted devotees to be the original temple, if not the birth-place, of the sun-goddess. To perform this pilgrimage to Isye, at least once, is imperatively incumbent upon man, woman, and child, of every rank, and, it might almost be said, of every religion, since even of professed Budhists, only the bonzes ever exempt themselves from this duty. The pious repeat it annually. The siogoun, who has upon economical grounds been permitted, as have some of the greater princes, to discharge this duty vicariously, sends a yearly embassy of pilgrims to Isye. Of course, the majority of the pilgrims journey thither as conveniently as their circumstances admit; but the most correct mode is to make the pilgrimage on foot, and as a mendicant, carrying a mat on which to sleep, and a wooden ladle with which to drink. The greater the hardships endured, the greater the merit of the voluntary mendicant.

It need hardly be said that no person in a state of impurity may undertake this pilgrimage; and that all risk of impurity must be studiously avoided during its continuance; and this is thought to be the main reason why the Budhist priests are exempt from a duty of compliance with Sinsya, enjoined to their flocks. The bonzes, from their attendance upon the dying and the dead, are, in Sintoo estimation, in an almost uninterrupted state of impurity. But for the Isye pilgrimage, even the pure prepare by a course of purification. Nay, the contamination of the dwelling of the absent pilgrim would, it is conceived, be attended with disastrous consequences, which are guarded against by affixing a piece of white paper over the door, as a warning to the impure to avoid defiling

the house.

When the prescribed rites and prayers at the Isye temple and its subsidiary miya are completed, the pilgrim receives from the priest who has acted as his director a written absolution of all his past sins, and makes the priest a present proportioned to his station. This absolution, called the oko-haraki, is ceremo- niously carried home, and displayed in the absolved pilgrim's house. And from the importance of holding a recent absolution at the close of life, arises the necessity of frequently repeating the pilgrimage. Among the Isye priestesses, there is almost always one of the daughters of a mikado.

The Iøye temple is a peculiarly plain, humble, and unpretending structure, and really of great antiquity, though not quite so great as is ascribed to it, and is surrounded by a vast number of inferior miya. The whole too is occupied by priests, and persons connected with the temple, and depending upon the con- course of pilgrims for their support. Every pilgrim, upon reaching the sacred spot, applies to a priest to guide him through the course of devotional exercises incum- bent upon him.

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