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Updated: June 27, 2025
But really the thing looks as if it could only have been broken by an earthquake. 8 KITZUKI, July 25th. At the Oho-yashiro it is the annual festival of the God of Scholarship, the God of Calligraphy Tenjin. Here in Kitzuki, the festival of the Divine Scribe, the Tenjin-Matsuri, is still observed according to the beautiful old custom which is being forgotten elsewhere.
The spirit of Sugiwara-no-Michizane, once minister to the Emperor Daigo, is worshipped as the god of calligraphy, under the name of Tenjin, or Temmangu: children everywhere offer to him the first examples of their handwriting, and deposit in receptacles, placed before his shrine, their worn-out writing-brushes.
It is plain that few genealogical trees could be actually traced further back than the Chigi. Hence, for all practical purposes, the Shimbetsu consisted of the descendants of vanquished chiefs, and the fact was tacitly acknowledged by assigning to this class the second place in the social scale, though the inclusion of the Tenjin and the Tenson should have assured its precedence.
We then visited some shops, of which there are a large number, all of them very interesting. Shintoism is the State religion, and the following morning we visited one of the temples, named Kitano Tenjin. Entering through the great stone torii or gateway, we found stone lanterns, together with stone and bronze bulls presented by devotees.
The original form of government under the Yamato seems to have been feudal. The heads of uji were practically feudal chiefs. Even orders from the Throne had to pass through the uji no Kami in order to reach the people. There was none. Men's minds were still deeply imbued with the conviction that by the Tenjin alone might the Throne be occupied.
Over the Tenjin-bashi, or Bridge of Tenjin, and through small streets and narrow of densely populated districts, and past many a tenantless and mouldering feudal homestead, I make my way to the extreme south- western end of the city, to watch the sunset from a little sobaya facing the lake. For to see the sun sink from this sobaya is one of the delights of Matsue.
And there, upon still clear nights, there appears a horizon of fire the torches of hosts of fishing-boats riding at anchor three and four miles away so numerous that their lights seem to the naked eye a band of unbroken flame. The Guji has invited me and one of my friends to see a great harvest dance at his residence on the evening of the festival of Tenjin.
In later times, memorial shrines were built in various places, and to this day he is fervently worshipped as the deity of calligraphy, so high was he elevated by the Fujiwara's attempt to drag him down. *Michizane was apotheosized under the name of Tenjin. He is known also as Kan Shojo, and Temmangu.
Besides these 3,132 shrines, which are distinguished as Shikidai, that is contained in the catalogue of the Yengishiki, there were a large number of enumerated shrines in temples scattered all over the country, in every village or hamlet, of which it was impossible to take any account, just as at the present day there are temples of Hachiman, Kompira, Tenjin sama, San-no sama and Sengen sama, as they are popularly called, wherever twenty or thirty houses are collected together.
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