HARVEST AND RENEWAL AT THE GRAND SHRINE OF ISE
BY
ROBERT S. ELLWOOD Los Angeles, U.S.A.
No Shinto shrine in Japan has a more profound connection with the religious life and history of the nation as a whole than the Grand Shrine of Ise. The Ise shrines honor deities who are ancestors and patrons of the imperial house, and hence of the nation. 1) At the same time, just because its special role has been conducive to conservatism, Ise per- petuates many usages of marked antiquity. 2 ) Thus these shrines offer
1) This is the popular belief in Japan; however, the precise meaning of the relation of Ise to the imperial house and to the nation is not entirely clear even by orthodox Shinto reckoning. The mythology of the Kojiki and Nihonshoki does not present the deity of the Outer Shrine as being imperial, although of course Amaterasu of the Inner Shrine is by all traditional accounting. But even here the mythology presents certain grounds for puzzlement, since the "Imperial Grandson" who founded the Empire is presented as the scion both of Amaterasu and Taka- mimusubi, the "High God," though the two are certainly not made consorts to each other. But in the historical and proto-historical sections of the Nihonshoki, Ise and Amaterasu are always closely identified with the Court, and at least from the time of the Emperor Temmu (r. A.D. 673-89), the Grand Shrine is primarily or exclusively patronized by the Imperial Family. Persons not of im- perial or priestly rank were forbidden even to enter it until the decline of the Heian period - after which its growth in popularity as a center of mass pil- grimage only increased its national prominance. For the early and imperial history of Ise, see Noboru Kawazoe, "The Ise Shrine," Japan Quarterly, Vol. IX, No. 3 (July-September, 1962) ; Takashi Tanaka, Jing� no S�shito Hatten (Ise, 1959), and Yatsuka Kiyotsura, K�shitsu to Jing� (Ise, 1957). 2) The usages of Ise by and large, however, are not as truly archaic as many of local shrines, or of certain historic shrines such as Miwa or Izumo which - in particulars which must be carefully distinguished from accretions - have pre- served elements of pre-Buddhist provenance within the context of that natural evolution which is made possible by relative lack of official attention. Ise, rather, suggests a crystallization of forms largely imported from the Yamato Court, and purged of Buddhism, current in the Temmu-Nara period when the Grand Shrine's imperial associations were solidified. Thus its cultus is neither genuinely indige- 166 a splendid opportunity to observe both archaic patterns and the effect of a historical environment upon them. In the tradition of this center one can
A pilgrim approaching the shrines of Ise would notice that all the buildings of this system, from the major edifaces down to the nesting- boxes of birds, are all built in a virtually identical style. Like ancient Japanese dwellings and granaries, they are set off the ground on posts, the roof is thatched, the building is rectangular, and the roof is sup- ported at each end by a pillar. Ornamentation is austere, and only the nous to Ise nor popular. Kawazoe (op. cit. p. 286) has suggested that the favors which began to fall upon Ise from the Imperial House with the Temmu period were related to the aid which Temmu received in securing the throne from Ise province. In any case, such documents as the Nihonshoki and the Daijing�Shoza- jiki respectively date the historical beginning of the institution of the imperial princess resident at Ise (Siag�) and the Twenty-year Rebuilding to edicts of Temmu. (This is not certain; Takashi Tanaka accepts the likelihood that a form of the Saig� was established in the reign of Temmu in op. cit., p. 102; but compares several scholarly opinions which place the beginning of the Twenty year Rebuilding system from Temmu to the first year of Enryaku (782 A.D.) in ibid., pp. 209-213.) However, from the time of the Taih�Code of 701 A.D. which established the Ministry of Official Shinto (Jingi-kan), the Ise shrines came under the increasingly close regulation of the Court through the Saig�, the sending of Imperial Envoys with offerings at major occasions, the appointment of Nakatomi priests (the family which also dominated Court Shinto) as Chief Priests, and such Court-authorized documents as the Gishikich�(804 A.D.) and Engishiki (927 A.D.) which outlined its administrative structure and liturgical cycle. But within this mould Ise has remained relatively stable, and moreover certain later developments were adjusted in favor of what was believed to be the ancient imperial model by the Meiji Reforms of the Grand Shrine in the early 1870's. To illustrate the Courtly or Great Tradition character of the Grand Shrine cultus as over against the indigenous one may mention the recent study of sacred dance or kagura by Yasuji Honda, Kagura (Tokyo: 966). Honda establishes the Ise area as generative of one of two major categories of kagura, the type called yudate typified by the waving of branches by girls to sprinkle drops of water for purifi- cation. But the official dances of the Grand Shrine, from the time of the Gishi- kich�,have been such Court dances as the Yamato-mai (of which the Ninj�-mai is apparently a type) and the female Gosechi-mai. (See "K�daijing�Gishikich �," Zoku Gunshoruij� Kanseikai, Gunshoruij� (Tokyo, 1906), I, p. 29, and cf. "Toyuki-g� Gishikich�,"ibid., p. 56, for citation of such dances as these as the official kagura offered in the closing action of major rituals.)