Gods are absent (kami no rusu)

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Gods are absent (kami no rusu)

***** Location: Japan
***** Season: Early Winter
***** Category: Season

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Explanation

The tenth lunar month (now November), after the harvest when the Japanese gods had done their duty, they left their local shrines for a bit of a vacation. They would all go for an audience and to celebrate at the great shrine of Izumo, so the rest of Japan was "without gods".



There are various kigo related to this important event.

"gods-absent month", 10th lunar month,
kannazuki, kaminazuki 神無月 かんなづき

"gods-present month", month with the gods
kamiarizuki 神有月
This kigo could only be used in IZUMO itself, where the gods were present.

the gods are absent, kami no rusu 神の留守
the gods are travelling, kami no tabi 神の旅

saying good bye to the gods, sending off the gods
..... kami okuri 神送り

welcoming the gods, greeting the gods
..... kami mukae 神迎
This kigo could only be used in IZUMO itself, where the gods were arriving.

During this month, various taboos were observed all over Japan, after all, the protective deities were all away ! And in Izumo, they would be feasting and celebrating with the boss, so to speak. Okuni-Nushi no Mikoto (ookuninushi) 大国主命 was the most important deity, revered at the grand shrine of Izumo, Izumo Taisha 出雲大社.
Okuni-Nushi is also known as the god of happiness and marriage. In this respect, he is equivalent to the Buddhist Deity of Daikoku-Sama　大黒 . 大国.

The shrine compound is most serene, settled in a forest of old pines. Close by is Hino Misaki (Hinomisaki) 日の岬, with a view to the sacred island where the god stood when he fished for the Japanese Islands in the sea, as the legend goes.

I visited the area a while ago and the strong impression of the actual presence of the deities is still with me.

Gabi Greve





kami okuri 神送り saying good bye to the gods, sending off the gods

島根県八束郡鹿島町の佐太（さだ）神社で神在祭

Sada Jinja 佐太神社
73 Kashimacho Sadamiyauchi, Matsue, Shimane

- quote
a Shinto shrine in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture, Japan. The Taisha-zukuri north, central and south halls of 1807 are Important Cultural Properties.
Sada Shin Noh, ritual purification dances performed annually on 24 and 25 September, have been designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property. In 2011 Sada Shin Noh was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !



CLICK for more images !

kamiari matsuri 神在祭 (かみありまつり) ritual to welcome the Gods
kamiari, kami-ari 神在（かみあり "gods are here"
kami tsudoi 神集い（かみつどい） gods are meeting
o-imi matsuri 御忌祭（おいみまつり）
karasade no shinji 神等去出神事（からさでのしんじ） ritual of seeing the gods off

kami mukae 神迎え (かみむかえ) "welcoming the gods"
kami kaeri 神還り（かみかえり）gods are going home, leaving


At the end of the month-long "working-meeting" at Izumo Taisha the deities gather for a final meeting
naorai 神宴(直会) to celebrate and drink ... at the shrine
万九千神社 Mankusen Jinja
before they travel back on the 26th day 神等去出.

- Three deities in residence
Kushimikenu no Mikoto 櫛御気奴命 / 櫛御氣奴命 (くしみけぬのみこと)
- honorific name of God Susano-o-no-mikoto
Oonamuchi no Mikoto 大穴牟遅命 (Okuninushi)
Sukunahikona no mikoto 少彦名命



The head priest of this temple has to get up at night and hit the closed door of the celebrating hall with a sacred plum tree branch, to tell the god's its time to hit the road.
Finally he opens the door
and then he must make a deep bow and close the eyes so as not to see the gods taking their leave.
In the compound of the shrine is a large pillar, from where the gods take off 神等去出 （カラサデ）karasade.

The Gods have come from the Sea at Izumo AMA 海（あま）から迎え山―天（あま）から送る and are then sent to heaven again - AMA 天.

kamitachi 神立 -- からさで祭 Karasade matsuri
ritual of the "Gods leaving"
at Sada Jinja on the 25th, at Izumo Taisha on the 27th.



万九千神社 Mankusen Jinja
Hikawa-cho, Aikawa, Shimane / 島根県簸川郡斐川町併川258
next to Tachimushi Jinja 立虫神社



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Izumo Kaido, The Old Road of Izumo 出雲街道
Gabi Greve


The Asian Lunar Calendar. Reference

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To celebrate sunrise, 日が昇る, prayers are sent to
. Ise Jingu 伊勢神宮 Ise Grand Shrine .
Amaterasu Omikami is a deity in charge of all things that humans can see.

To celebrate sunset, 日が沈む, prayers are sent to
. Izumo taisha 出雲大社 Grand Shrine at Izumo .
and Hinomisaki Shrine 日御碕神社 close by at the beach.
Okuninushi (Daikoku) is a deity in charge of all things that humans can not see, especially relationships and feelings.
目に見えない世界 - 神事（かくれたること）

The great shrine at Izumo, where the Gods are celebrating



Click on the PHOTO to look at more !

External LINKs
Shimane and its Important Shrines

Great Shrine at Izumo, Izumo Oyashiro
Japanese Homepage　日本語


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Izumo Shinkō
is the faith centered around the shrine Izumo Taisha in Taishamachi, Shimane Prefecture. The "enshrined kami" (saijin) Ōkuninushi has many variant names or titles modifying those names, and from these we know that he was worshipped as, among other things, an earth kami, as the king or possessor of the land of Japan, and as a kami of land reclamation and agriculture. From the distribution of legends concerning the kami associated with Ōkuninushi in the Izumo no kuni fudoki (733) we can see that the cult of Izumo encompassed the entire Izumo region.

Until the Bakumatsu Period, Izumo Taisha was generally referred to as Kidzuki Taisha, and the shrine's foundation legend (which describes Ōkuninushi's "relinquishing the land" (kuniyuzuri), accompanied with the construction of a tremendous shrine) seems to reflect the historical unification of the Japanese nation. There are, however, many theories concerning the era of the shrine's founding, and no definitive interpretation has been settled upon. The officiant of Izumo Taisha, the "governor of Izumo" (Izumo kokusō – also read as kuni no miyatsuko), worshipped both his traditional "clan kami" (ujigami) at Kumano Jinja (the present-day Kumano Taisha) and also at Izumo. From the Nara Period into the first half of the Heian Period, every time a new kokusō took office, he would travel to the capital and recite the norito "Izumo no kuni no miyatsuko no kanyogoto."

At first the central government regarded Kumano more highly than Izumo, but from the second half of the Heian Period, Izumo Taisha became an ichinomiya, and its land holdings were increased, numbering twelve towns and seven seaside villages in the Kamakura Period. At the end of the medieval period, the amount of rice garnered from these holdings amounted to about 5,400 koku, but in 1591 the shrine was stripped of all but five towns and two seaside villages, in order to fund Mōri Terumoto's dispatching of troops to the Korean Peninsula. Except for an increase of "fields that provide rice offerings" (saiden) and of lands to provide for shrine repairs, Izumo didn't recover the lost tribute land until the Bakumatsu Period.

Activities of oshi (shrine priests who guided and hosted pilgrims) related to Izumo Taisha date back to approximately 1532 - 1555 but it is thought that the economic problems cited above explain the sudden increase in their activity. In many regions there is a legend that the kami gather at Izumo during the tenth month of the lunar calendar. At Izumo this month is referred to as kamiaritsuki (the month when the kami are present). In accordance with this legend, the tenth month was referred to as kannadsuki (the month when the kami are absent) throughout the rest of Japan.
An early example of this term can be found in the Ōgishō, written in the first half of the twelfth century, and the term kamiaritsuki appears in the Kagakushū, written in the Muromachi Period (1444). These terms spread widely in the first half of the sixteenth century due to such texts as the yōkyoku (Noh script) Ōyashiro. These legends probably derive from local customs of greeting and seeing off the "kami of the rice paddy" (ta no kami) and from igomori festivals (abstinence and confinement to purify the self before religious events). Rites for the gathering of kami are also conducted at the shrines Sada Jinja and Kamosu Jinja in the Matsue area, but Izumo Taisha's Kamiari Festival became particularly famous. The cult of enmusubi (connecting romantic couples or enabling marriage) through the kami of Izumo seems to be an early modern development created by the activities of oshi.

Somewhat older, however, is a cult relating to the "deities of prosperity" (fukutokujin) which held that Ōkuninushi was the deity Daikokuten. In Indian religion, Daikokuten was the deity of battle, Mahākālā; in T'ang Dynasty China he was adopted as a Buddhist deity of food; and in Japan he became a guardian deity of Buddhist temple kitchens. The conflation with Ōkuninushi 　derives from the homophonous characters "大黒" (read "daikoku") and "大国" (read "daikoku" or "ōkuni"), and from the similarity of the two deities' characters as guardian kamis of food. Evidence of the conflation of these deities was recorded in the Chiribukuro written in the mid Kamakura period. In Japan's Shikoku and Chūgoku regions, there are many "Izumo yashiki" buildings. These structures have been purified with small amounts of sand taken from below the floor of the Soga no Yashiro, which stands behind the "main shrine" (honden) of Izumo Taisha. People thereby make a spiritual offering of their land or homes to the ruler of the land, Ōkuninushi, in order to receive his protection.

At the beginning of the Meiji Period, Izumo Taisha emphasized the legend of "relinquishing the land" (kuni yuzuri) – namely, a peaceful transfer of land. The shrine also actively incorporated the notion that Ōkuninushi was a kami who ruled the other world (originally posited by Hirata Atsutane), in order to preach about a peaceful afterlife and to appeal for the introduction of Shinto-style funerals (shinsōsai). At this time, two religious groups were established, based around associations for worshipping the kami ("keishinkōsha") and on places of assembly. The two religious groups are the Izumo Ōyashirokyō, connected with the Senge clan of governors (kokusō), and the Izumokyō, connected with the Kitajima clan of kokusō. The combined number of believers in these groups is claimed (by the sects themselves) to exceed 1,500,000. See also Izumo Taisha, Izumo Taishakyō, and Izumokyō.
- source : Hirai Naofusa - Kokugakuin 2006


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Worldwide use


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Things found on the way

. The regional 六所神社 Rokusho Jinja Shrines .
They are resting places for the deities on their journey to Izumo.

Koya San in Wakayama 高野山　和歌山県
By Gabi Greve
See the Haiku below.

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Grand Shrine at Izumo

"Since ancient times, there have been records of Izumo Taisha once having been housed in a 45-meter-high building, but those records couldn't be substantiated," commented the information guide at the hall. "But then in 2000, enormous pillars were discovered that could have supported a structure of that height.
That would have made it taller even than Todaiji, the temple housing the giant Buddha in Nara."

Read an interesting article:
Izumo : Here be the land of the gods
By CHRIS BAMFORTH

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HAIKU

風寒し破れ障子の神無月
kaze samushi yabure-shooji no kannazuki

cold wind
through our torn paper doors
in the month without gods

. Yamazaki Sokan 山崎宗鑑 Yamazaki Sookan .
1465 - 1553

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さをしかや 神の留守事 寝て遊ぶ
saoshika ya kami no rusu koto nete asobu

young buck--
while the gods are away
sleeping and carousing
Tr. David Lanoue



Haiga by Nakamura Sakuo


けふからは薬利くべし神迎
kyoo kara wa kusuri kiku beshi kami mukae

from today on
may my medicine work!
welcoming the gods
Tr. David Lanoue

. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 Issa in Edo .

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ranto no torii ya ge ni mo kannazuki

passing the torii gate
made of grave stones
Month without Gods

Kikaku

Another Haiku stone I found on Mt Koya.
This one is difficult to explain. The general meaning is: although there are torii gates (a symbol of Shinto shrines) in front of the graves, they have been built of grave stones, and on top of that, Mt Koya is the territory of the Buddha, there are no Japanese native deities here. And that beautifully fits the fact that the author, Kikaku, makes his visit to the mountain in October, the month which was called Kannazuki, or the Month without Gods. In short, this haiku is a crafty play on words.

From a great BLOG about Haiku Stones:
Copyright Ad G. Blankestijn, 2006. All rights reserved

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month without gods
only this brilliant moon
and I

kawazu - Cliff T. Roberts
Fort Worth, Texas. USA, November 2011

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Related words

I left the capital
and shared many nights on the road
with the gods


Matsuo Basho at Shrine Numazu Hie Jinja

***** . Sannoo matsuri 山王祭 (さんのうまつり) Sanno Festival .
Hiyoshi matsuri 日吉祭（ひよしまつり） Hiyoshi shrine festival
sarumatsuri 申祭（さるまつり）monkey festival
with the haiku by Matsuo Basho

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