Alleged Atago Shrine Shimominakawa

Further trekking behind the Maroudo shrine Main Hall led to Atago shrine Shimominakawa (愛宕神社下皆川). Shimominakawa is the name of the district that is probably coined by the name of ruler, Minagawa clan (皆川氏). According to the available info on the web, the one to the right Shinmei torii (photo below) is supposed to be the Atago shrine. The left shinmei torii (神明鳥居) stands in the middle of the long hill trail. I have no clue to which shrine the left torii belongs as there is no shrine nearby (except the Agato shrine to the right) 

Google map says the right shrine in the photo above is the Atago shrine. All the available info calls this Atago shrine. However, no crystal clear sign to signify this as the Atago shrine can be found in my fieldwork (or I was careless). Let's take a closer look at what I have found there.

Alleged Atago Shrine

What I found was five stone monuments providing us with some info regarding the shrine or the history of the district, Shimominakawa (下皆川). Here we go!

(1)登山百八度

(2)陸前国青麻（Rikuzen Province, Aoso; current Miyagino ward, Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture）　青麻大神

(3)御中八湖修行　御中道修行　登山三十三度報恩霊　

(4)庚申塔

(5)小御度(?)大神

Five stone monuments

(1) The 108th anniversary of the ascetic practice of trekking Mt. Ohira 

(2) 陸前国 (Rikuzen Province,)青麻 (Aoso=blue hemp) is the obsolete address used in the early Meiji Period (1869-1876?) that roughly corresponds to the current Aosozawa (青麻沢), Miyagino ward, Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture. or thereabouts. 青麻大神/Aoso Taijin means the great deity of hemp, whose name was coined by the fact that the distant relative of Shinto priest, Yasumasa Hozumi (穂積保昌), who came from Yamashiro Province (current Kyoto Prefecture), instructed hemp cultivation there. Besides, he brought his clan's worshipped deities there and enshrined them in the cave in the gorge in A.D. 852. The shrine was originally called Aoso Iwato Sankoh-gu (青麻岩戸三光宮), Aoso Gongensha (青麻権現社), or Saga Shrine (嵯峨神社). At present, it is called Aoso shrine (青麻神社). Sankoh-gu (三光宮) means the Palace of three lights (sun, moon, and stars) in which three deities, Amaterasu (deity of sunlight), Tsukuyomi (deity of the moon), and Amenominakanushi (天之御中主/deity of stars, with which I cannot fully agree) were enshrined.

(3) This is to commemorate the attainment of the 33rd Buddhist practice of trekking the mountain.

(4) This stone tablet is called "Kohshin tower (庚申塔)" for a folk faith (called Kohshin) in Japan with Taoist origins, influenced by Shinto, Buddhism, and other local beliefs. I will come back to this later.

(5) Honestly, it's hard to recognize the third letter. It must be the name of a deity but not sure if it's Shinto or Buddhism (or both). Besides, I have never heard of the name of this deity... Shame on me!

Around 900 Atago shrines are dispersed all over Japan. It is very likely that, due to the name of the shrine, the divine spirit of Atago Shrine Shimominakawa was transferred from the Atago Shrine (愛宕神社) located on the summit of Mt. Atago (愛宕山) in Kyoto, the headquarter of all Agato shrines. 

What is known about the Atago Shrine Shimominakawa is a lot less than that of the Maroudo Shrine. Nobody knows when it was founded and the exact enshrined deities. But what we do know is Atago Shrine is recognized as the shrine for fire extinguishing that is indispensable for preventing desiccated winter mountains from wildfire. It makes sense to me that Atago shrine Shimominakawa is located in the skirt of Mt. Ohira. In addition to this, Atago Shrine is well-renowned for its inception of Atago worship (愛宕信仰)- a Shinto practice of worshipping the deity of fire (i.e. Kagutsuchi/カグツチ). Furthermore, Atago Shrines served as the school for the Buddhist practice called Shugendoh (修験道). It is tempting to ponder that, back in the olden days, the Buddist monks having faith in Atago worship went through Shugendoh there and made stone tablets (1) and (3).

I am not sure if you are familiar with (4) Kohshin (庚申). For those who are interested in this faith, please visit Wiki page as it requires countless lines to explain this intriguing custom here. To make the long story short, it is said that the custom was introduced to Japan by the Buddhist monks in Heian Period. The idea is all about longevity based on the belief that three bugs (called Sanshi/三尸 in Japanese; three Corpses) parasitizing in our body are the tattletales/traitors that get out of　the host’s body every 60 days to keep the Jade Emperor (玉皇大帝)/Ten tei (天帝) informed sins host committed. The more sins are reported and filed, the shorter the life span host gets. Three Corpses are believed to get out of the host's body at night when the host is asleep on the day called Kohshin. In order for the host to remain bugs within the body (so that bugs can't report sins to the Jade Emperor), hosts get together in a place and stay awake all night long by listening to the monk's lecture or just chatting over booze. It was introduced from China in the Heian period and became pretty popular in the Edo period in Japan. This is called Kohshin because Koh (庚) is one of the ten heavenly stems (a.k.a. Celestial Stems) and shin (申) is a monkey, which many of you readers know, is one of the twelve animals of the year. These two elements are comprised of a Sexagenary cycle that cycles sixty terms. Hence, every 60 days comes the day of Kohshin.

  

Three Corpses-image from Wiki

It appears that, in the past, the Kohshin practice was quite prevalent among indigenous people who built a Kohshin stone tablet there. This is not so surprising that the Kohshin stone tablet stands in the shrine because of Shinto-Buddhist syncretism but what is perplexing the most is (2). This stone archive (2) certainly indicates this alleged shrine is an Aoso shrine branch and divinity of the Aoso Taijin (青麻大神) was transferred from the headquarter of Aoso Shrine (青麻神社). 

In this entry, I did not mention anything about Maroudo Shrine but what was inscribed in these stone tablets gave me a big hint to "decode" the deity enshrined in the Maroudo Shrine.

To be continued to the final entry for Maroudo Shrine.