Many of us visited Kasuga Taisha Shrine near Nara Park, even enjoyed its lanterns festivals, but how much do we know about the Gods of this shrine?
In recent years a set of 21 ancient scrolls from the year 1,300 called “The Miracles of the Kasuga Deity” (春日権現験記) were displayed to the public for the first time.
Before this, these rolls could only be seen by members of the imperial family. In these scrolls several stories about the Kasuga Taisha shrine gods appearing to people are narrated. In many of the stories, the group of the Kasuga gods will appear in a form of a noblewoman that would interact with people. This woman would have really long hair and since it is rude to look at God’s face, most of the time the illustrations won’t show her face.
We summarized some of the stories on the rolls:
Kasuga Shrine has always had a really close relation with the buddhist temple Kofukuji, which is near the shrine in Nara. Many monks from Kofukuji would visit the shrine regularly. One of them was a monk called Kyokai.
Kyokai lived in Kofukiji when he was studying Buddhism, and then he moved to Kizugawa in Kyoto. He retired to Koyasan in Wakayama prefecture at the age of 70. Kyokai practiced Nembutsu faith, which believes that one can be saved and attain rebirth by reciting the holy name of Buddha.
After his retirement, with the passing of the years Kyokai becomes unable to stand up due to back problems. He often remembers when he was younger and visited Kasuga Shrine, so he started praying to Kasuga Gods to fix his back.
One night, a noblewoman appears in front of him in his dream. The woman says to Kyokai “Even though you have abandoned me, I will not abandon you” (汝は我を捨てつれども、我は汝を捨てず) and immediately after that she flies away on a cloud. Kyokai woke up and his back was no longer hurting.
There was another monk from Kofukiji temple in Nara called Ichika.
He was studying to become a master of a Buddhist ceremony to cure illness called Yumae. This ceremony originated when the patriarch of the Fujiwara family, Fujiwara no Katamari, who was sick and monks from Kofukuji Temple prayed for his recovery.
Remember that the Fujiwara family were the ones who built the Kasuga Shrine in the first place. This shows one more time the strong bond between Kasuga Shrine and Kofukuji temple.
Back to Ichika’s story, he failed to master this ceremony and left the temple in despair. He moved to Aichi prefecture. In Aichi prefecture there is another important shinto shrine called Atsuta shrine in Nagoya.
One day Ichika visited this Atsuta shrine and a shinto priestess appeared in front of him and told him “Even though you have abandoned me, I will not abandon you“. Ichika knew this priestess was actually a manifestation of the gods of the Kasuga Taisha Shrine, so despite feeling shameful for running away he returned that year to the Kofukiji temple in Nara. The following year he became a master of the Yumae Ceremony.
There was a woman who died and went to hell. The woman was the mother of a monk of Kofukuji temple.
In hell she was brought before Enmaou, the king of the underworld and the judge of the dead in East Asian Buddhism, folklore and religion. As she trembled with fear a noble boy appeared. The boy looked to the king of the underworld and said to him “This woman raised a monk of the Kofukuji temple. I am grateful to her for that.” Enmao listened to the words of the boy and resuscitated the woman. This boy was also a manifestation of the Kasuga Gods.
Because of this kind of episodes included in the rolls it is said that the words of the Gods from Kasuga Shrine have great power. You can take a look at the content of some of the rolls in the Cultural Heritage Online Website of Japan.
Have you already visited the Kasuga Taisha Shrine?
You can join our tours and find out more about religion in Japan.
Tours to visit the Kasuga Taisha Shrine in Nara:
– Beat-the-Crowds: Nara Morning Tour around Deer Park
– Nara Night Tour: Lantern Walk at Deer Park
