Senke Takanori is a youthful and powerful man. As he sits there before
me in his immobile hieratic pose, with his strange lofty head-dress,
his heavy curling beard, and his ample snowy sacerdotal robe broadly
spreading about him in statuesque undulations, he realises for me all
that I had imagined, from the suggestion of old Japanese pictures, about
the personal majesty of the ancient princes and heroes. The dignity
alone of the man would irresistibly compel respect; but with that
feeling of respect there also flashes through me at once the thought of
the profound reverence paid him by the population of the most ancient
province of Japan, the idea of the immense spiritual power in his
hands, the tradition of his divine descent, the sense of the immemorial
nobility of his race--and my respect deepens into a feeling closely
akin to awe. So motionless he is that he seems a sacred statue only--the
temple image of one of his own deified ancestors. But the solemnity of
the first few moments is agreeably broken by his first words, uttered in
a low rich basso, while his dark, kindly eyes remain motionlessly fixed
upon my face. Then my interpreter translates his greeting--large fine
phrases of courtesy--to which I reply as I best know how, expressing my
gratitude for the exceptional favour accorded me.
'You are, indeed,' he responds through Akira, 'the first European ever
permitted to enter into the Oho-yashiro. Other Europeans have visited
Kitzuki and a few have been allowed to enter the temple court; but you
only have been admitted into the dwelling of the god. In past years,
some strangers who desired to visit the temple out of common curiosity
only were not allowed to approach even the court; but the letter of Mr.
Nishida, explaining the object of your visit, has made it a pleasure for
us to receive you thus.'
Again I express my thanks; and after a second exchange of courtesies the
conversation continues through the medium of Akira.
'Is not this great temple of Kitzuki,' I inquire, 'older than the
temples of Ise?'
'Older by far,' replies the Guji; 'so old, indeed, that we do not well
know the age of it. For it was first built by order of the Goddess of
the Sun, in the time when deities alone existed. Then it was exceedingly
magnificent; it was three hundred and twenty feet high. The beams and
the pillars were larger than any existing timber could furnish; and the
framework was bound together firmly with a rope made of taku [11] fibre,
one thousand fathoms long.
'It was first rebuilt in the time of the Emperor Sui-nin. [12] The
temple so rebuilt by order of the Emperor Sui-nin was called the
Structure of the Iron Rings, because the pieces of the pillars, which
were composed of the wood of many great trees, had been bound fast
together with huge rings of iron. This temple was also splendid, but far
less splendid than the first, which had been built by the gods, for its
height was only one hundred and sixty feet.
'A third time the temple was rebuilt, in the reign of the Empress
Sai-mei; but this third edifice was only eighty feet high. Since then
the structure of the temple has never varied; and the plan then followed
has been strictly preserved to the least detail in the construction of
the present temple.
'The Oho-yashiro has been rebuilt twenty-eight times; and it has been
the custom to rebuild it every sixty-one years. But in the long period
of civil war it was not even repaired for more than a hundred years. In
the fourth year of Tai-ei, one Amako Tsune Hisa, becoming Lord of Izumo,
committed the great temple to the charge of a Buddhist priest, and even
built pagodas about it, to the outrage of the holy traditions. But when
the Amako family were succeeded by Moro Mototsugo, this latter purified
the temple, and restored the ancient festivals and ceremonies which
before had been neglected.'
'In the period when the temple was built upon a larger scale,' I ask,
'were the timbers for its construction obtained from the forests of
Izumo?'
The priest Sasa, who guided us into the shrine, makes answer: 'It is
recorded that on the fourth day of the seventh month of the third year
of Ten-in one hundred large trees came floating to the sea coast of
Kitzuki, and were stranded there by the tide. With these timbers the
temple was rebuilt in the third year of Ei-kyu; and that structure was
called the Building-of-the-Trees-which-came-floating. Also in the same
third year of Ten-in, a great tree-trunk, one hundred and fifty feet
long, was stranded on the seashore near a shrine called Ube-no-yashiro,
at Miyanoshita-mura, which is in Inaba. Some people wanted to cut the
tree; but they found a great serpent coiled around it, which looked
so terrible that they became frightened, and prayed to the deity of
Ube-noyashiro to protect them; and the deity revealed himself, and said:
"Whensoever the great temple in Izumo is to be rebuilt, one of the gods
of each province sends timber for the building of it, and this time
it is my turn. Build quickly, therefore, with that great tree which
is mine." And therewith the god disappeared. From these and from other
records we learn that the deities have always superintended or aided the
building of the great temple of Kitzuki.'
'In what part of the Oho-yashiro,' I ask, 'do the august deities
assemble during the Kami-ari-zuki?'
'On the east and west sides of the inner court,' replies the priest
Sasa, 'there are two long buildings called the Jiu-kusha. These contain
nineteen shrines, no one of which is dedicated to any particular god;
and we believe it is in the Jiu-ku-sha that the gods assemble.'
'And how many pilgrims from other provinces visit the great shrine
yearly?' I inquire.
'About two hundred and fifty thousand,' the Guji answers. 'But the
number increases or diminishes according to the condition of the
agricultural classes; the more prosperous the season, the larger the
number of pilgrims. It rarely falls below two hundred thousand.'