Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 22, 2025
If there be no miya, the tablets or ofuda are simply placed upon the shelf in a certain order, the most sacred having the middle place.
There were remains of other miya, much older, lying in some bushes near by. Two large stones, unhewn and without inscriptions of any sort, have been placed before the shrine. I looked into it, and saw a crumbling metal-mirror, dingy paper gohei attached to splints of bamboo, two little o-mikidokkuri, or Shinto sake-vessels of red earthenware, and one rin.
But the Kamiya family endures; no longer wealthy, as in feudal times, but still highly honoured in their native city. And each high pontiff of Hinomisakei chooses always his bride from among the daughters of that valiant race. This miya was built for an atonement; and the people still pray to the spirit of the Kengyo.
In solemn procession it was borne to .those strange old family temples in the heart of the fortress-grounds Go-jo- naiInari-Daimyojin, and Kusunoki-Matauhira-Inari-Daimyojin whose mouldering courts, peopled with lions and foxes of stone, are shadowed by enormous trees. After certain Shinto rites had been performed at both temples, the miya was carried back in procession to Rakuzan.
10 Anciently the two great Shinto festivals on which the miya were thus carried in procession were the Yoshigami-no-matsuri, or festival of the God of the New Year, and the anniversary of Jimmu Tenno to the throne. The second of these is still observed. The celebration of the Emperor's birthday is the only other occasion when the miya are paraded.
And this being an impious desire, both of the Kokuzo unitedly protested against it. But despite their remonstrances and their pleadings, he persisted angrily in his demand, so that the priests found themselves compelled to open the shrine. And the miya being opened, Naomasu saw within it a great awabi of nine holes so large that it concealed everything behind it.
And the figure of a fox in stone sits before the Name of the August Spirit-of-Food. The miya or Shinto temple itself is quite small smaller than most of the temples in the neighbourhood, and dingy, and begrimed with age. Yet, next to Kitzuki, this is the most famous of Izumo shrines.
The fate of the day was decided by two field-pieces, which the latter contrived to mount on the roof of a neighbouring tea-house; and the Shogun's men, driven out of the place, carried off the Miya in the vain hope of raising his standard in the north as that of a rival Mikado.
And this annual ceremony was called the miyuki or togyo 'the August Going, or Visit, of the ancestor to the ancestral home. But the revolution changed all things. The daimyo passed away; the castles fell to ruin; the samurai caste was abolished and dispossessed. And the miya of Lord Naomasa made no August Visit to the home of the Mataudaira for more than thirty years.
The beautiful miniature temples in some rich homes may justly excite admiration by their artistic structure and decoration; but the ten or thirteen cent miya, in the house of a labourer or a kurumaya, of plain white wood, truly represents that spirit of simplicity characterising the primitive religion.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking