Tashima Shrine is a shrine situated on Kabe Island [ja; ceb] in Yobuko Town now, Karatsu City, Saga Prefecture, Japan.[1][2][page needed] It is located in the area known as Matsurokoku, which is believed to be the first land of the mainland of Wakoku as per Wajinden records. It is an important point for safe sea crossings to the continent, and has received significant orders from the central government since ancient times.

Tashima Shrine
View of the shrine from the sea
Religion
AffiliationShinto
Deity
Location
LocationJapan
Tashima Shrine is located in Japan
Tashima Shrine
Shown within Japan
Geographic coordinates33°33′21″N 129°53′26″E / 33.55583°N 129.89056°E / 33.55583; 129.89056
Glossary of Shinto

In earlier times, it was called 'Tajima Niimasu Kaminoyashiro'. It is the only Myojin Taisha in Hizen Province, and was previously classified as Kokuhei Chusha due to renovations during the Meiji era. Currently, it is a beppyo shrine of the Association of Shinto Shrines.[3] It is associated with Matsura Sayohime who is said to be buried on the site.[4][5][6] It is a Munakata shrine and is said to be the original shrine (roots) of Munakata Taisha, so it is sometimes called Moto-Munakata.[7][8][page needed]

Mythology edit

 
Sayohime Shrine
 
Matsura Sayo-hime. Caption refers to the petrification[a]
—by Utagawa Kuniyoshi. Series: Kenjo reppuden or "Stories of Wise and Strong Women".

According to a version of the legend of Matsura Sayohime, she prayed with such fervour that she was transformed into stone.[9] This petrification lore of Sayohime appears to be of later development, with its earliest attestation identified as renga poet Bontōan [ja]'s Sodeshita shū (c. Ōei era, late 14th to early 15th century).[10] This lore of Sayohime's petrification is thought to have developed from a misunderstanding: a misreading of Jikkinshō [ja] (13th century), which ponders on the Sayohime legend and makes reference to the petrification motif taken from an old Chinese work called the Youminglu.[11][12] Sayohime's petrification is also mentioned in Nihon meijo monogatari (1670).[13]

Her supposed petrified remains, an example of a bōfuseki (望夫石, "rock that contemplates the husband"),[14] is housed as the shintai ("body of the kami") at the Sayohime Shrine, an undershrine of Tashima Shrine on Kabe Island.[4][5][6] The claim regarding her petrification on this island is given in a late account of the origin of this undershrine, preserved in the 19th-century document called the Matsura komonjo (松浦古文書) (written during the Bunka era).[15] It states that the lady did not stop at the Scarf-Waving Peak bidding farewell, but she continued to a spot[b] from whose vantage point she beheld an island nearby. She then hopped on a fishing boat to that island, called the Himekami-jima (姫神島) island (present-day Kabe Island[18][19]) where she climbed a "bit elevated spot" and there, out of sorrow, she turned intorock.[15] Commentators identify this elevation as the Tendō-dake (天童岳) or Dentō-dake (伝登岳).[18]

See also edit

Explanatory notes edit

  1. ^ "..the vital force (ki) of her love, in its exact original shape, transformed into stone (恋慕の気凝りて、そのままに形(かたち)石となり)".
  2. ^ At the place she saw the island, she called out Satehiko's name, hence the spot was named Yobu na no ura (呼名の浦, lit. the 'name-calling inlet-shore'), which later became the town of Yobuko.[15][16][17]

References edit

  1. ^ The Japan Magazine: A Representative Monthly of Things Japanese, Japan magazine Company, 1928
  2. ^ Hall, Jessica (2003), The Deepest Edge, Signet, ISBN 978-0-451-20796-8
  3. ^ "別表神社とは?御朱印めぐりに参考になる「別表神社一覧」とマップ | 開運戦隊ゴシュインジャー", 2023-05-14, archived from the original on 2023-05-14, retrieved 2023-12-02
  4. ^ a b Jōya, Moku (1963), Mock Jōya's Things Japanese, Tokyo News Service Press, p. 222
  5. ^ a b "September Sights: The Season of Festivals", Japan, no. 59, Based on material supplied by Shiga Shigetaka, The Japan Office, 1915, p. 16{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  6. ^ a b Murao, Rikitarō (1968), "Tsukishi no no to Chikuhi no umi no kaiko: Nihon&kaigai shūkyō kōshō kenkyū" 「筑紫の野」と「筑肥の海」の懐古―日本・海外宗教交渉略史研究―, Wasada shōgaku (205): 103
  7. ^ Kalland, Arne (1995-01-01), Fishing Villages in Tokugawa, Japan, University of Hawaii Press, ISBN 978-0-8248-1632-2
  8. ^ Rots, Aike P.; Teeuwen, Mark (2020-04-02), Sacred Heritage in Japan, Routledge, ISBN 978-1-000-04563-5
  9. ^ Pfoundes, C (1878), "The Loving Wife", The Folk-Lore Record, 1: 131, JSTOR 1252349; —— (1875), Fu-so Mimo Bukuro: A Budget of Japanese Notes, Yokohama: Japan Mai, p. 178
  10. ^ Nakayama, Tarō [in Japanese] (1943), "Bōfuseki" 望夫石, Shinkō to minzoku 信仰と民俗, Mikasa Shobo, p. 211 apud Yoshioka, Kyōsuke (1906), "Matsura Sayohime no densetsu", Teikoku bungaku 12 (7).
  11. ^ Yabu (2006), p. 19.
  12. ^ Ishikawa, Masamochi (1892) [1805], "Nezame no susabi 2" ねざめのすさび 2, Hyakka setsurin 百家説林, vol. 3, Yoshikawa kobunkan, p. 642
  13. ^ Kim Kyonran (1998), pp. 24–25; p. 21 (English abstract), apud Satō (1966), p. 37
  14. ^ Kim Kyonran (1998), pp. 21–22.
  15. ^ a b c Matsura komonjo 松浦古文書 Volume 1('jō'), "Ch. 5: Sayohime jinja no koto 佐用姫神社之事", in: Yoshimura, Shigesaburo, ed. (1934), Matsuura zōsho 「松浦叢書, vol. 1, Karatsu, pp. 81–82{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link).
  16. ^ Matsushiro, Matsutarō, ed. (1925), Higashi-Matsuura-gun shi 東松浦郡史, Kyūkei-sha, p. 559
  17. ^ "Matsura-sayohime" 松浦佐用姫 まつらさよひめ, Nihon daihyakka jiten (Nipponica), Shogakukan, 1994
  18. ^ a b Yoshida, Shūsaku [in Japanese] (1992), "Denshō no Tsukushi-otome: Matsura Sayohime denshō" 伝承の〈筑紫をとめ〉-松浦佐用姫伝承-, Fukuoka Jogakuin University bulletin, 2: 77; Yoshida, Shūsaku [in Japanese] (1998), Bungei denshōron: denshō no wotoko to wotome 文芸伝承論: 伝承の「をとこ」と「をとめ」, Ōfū, p. 242, ISBN 9784273030384
  19. ^ Yanagita, Kunio (1971) [1950], Nihon densetsu meii 日本伝説名彙, Nihon hōsō shuppan kyōkai, p. 189

Bibliography edit