Thread by @camelliakyoto

🚪😱HAUNTED GATES & DANCING CATS😼👻

It's been a while since I've done a #folklorethursday, so here's some local, rather less well-known tales.

Demizu was once home to Toyotomi Hideyoshi's lavish palace 'Jurakudai' (聚樂第), and the area has many strange wonders.
#Kyoto #京都

Kannon-ji's 'Gate of 100 Lashings' (観音寺 百叩きの門) belonged originally to the prison at Fushimi Castle (伏見城). When the castle was dismantled the doorway was gifted to the temple🏯🚪🩸😰👋

The gate is just 1 of the '7 Wonders of Demizu' (出水の七不思議).
#Kyoto #京都 #出水

Before prisoners were set free they underwent a final punishment at the prison gate...a warning to stay on the straight & narrow.
They were lashed 100 times with a piece of split bamboo across the back. It was agonizing, & sometimes deadly!

Image thanks🙇‍♂️-bakumatsuya.com

The doors are made from a single piece of camphor wood.
One reason the gate may have been gifted to the temple is over a concern that it was haunted.
Men died during their final beatings, and some believed their ghosts inhabited the doors.

Image thanks🙇‍♂️-bakumatsuya.com

When first installed at the temple, rumours spread that at night moans could be heard drifting from the gate👻

Spooked, the head priest of the temple performed a 100 day memorial service for the condemned men that had perished in the prison, hoping to exorcise the ghosts.
#Kyoto

Halfway through his memorial services the priest was awoken one night by the sound of fearful groaning.

Gathering all the courage he could muster he went to the gate, and discovered the source of the 'haunting' was wind rattling the wicket door cut within the gate😅
#folklore

Many of Kyōto's shrines and temples boast their own '7 Wonders'. We've talked about a few before...

🐂THE 7 WONDERS OF KITANO🌸


🐉THE 7 WONDERS OF EIKAN-DŌ🪺


👹THE 7 WONDERS OF YASAKA-JINJA🔥

#Kyoto #京都

2) Kōsei-in's (光清院) "Merry Cat" (浮かれ猫)🐈

On nights when a mysterious shamisen could be heard the cat would leave the painting (gifted as offering to the temple) to dance in the air.
A mesh was put on the painting to entrap the cat!

Photo thanks🙇‍♂️-leafkyoto.net/makai/2019/11/

3) Kekō-ji’s (華光寺) "5-Coloured Camellias" (五色椿)🌺

Beloved by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the plant sadly died in the Shōwa period.
Many temples in Demizu have connections to Hideyoshi, & after his death dozens of Fushimi Castle's buildings were distributed to religious sites here.

4) Kekō-ji’s (華光寺) "Autumn Shower Pine" (時雨松 'Shigure-matsu')🌲
In this same temple there was once a large pine. Those who stood beneath the tree's branches could feel a drizzle, even on the hottest of days. The pine died in 1918 (its roots are preserved in the bell tower).

松無古今色

'Matsu ni kokon no iro nashi'

..."Young or old, the pine tree is always green".

Kekō-ji photos, thanks to🙇‍♂️-blog.goo.ne.jp/korede193/e/f6…
#Kyoto #京都 #FolkloreThursday #Japan #sevenwonders

5) Gokō-in’s (五劫院) "Recumbent Buddha" (横たわる釈迦)💤

As you pass through the temple's gate (小袖門) pay close attention to the lintel. In the grain of the wood it is possible to make out what appears to be Buddha, lying peacefully😲

Photo thanks🙇-blog.goo.ne.jp/korede193/e/be…

6) Gokuraku-ji's (極楽寺) "Kinkoku-sui" (金谷水 lit. 'Water of the Golden Valley')💦🍵

It is said that Toyotomi Hideyoshi drew water from the temple well to use in the Grand Kitano Tea Ceremony (北野大茶湯 'Kitano ōchanoyu'), held on the 1st day of the 10th month in 1587.
#Kyoto

In his diary Yoshida Kanemi (吉田兼見) recorded that there were over 1500 'teahouses' (many were simply mats) set up in the bamboo grove at Kitano Tenmangū (北野天満宮) for the event.
1000 people of all ranks attended the first day, before the event was abruptly cancelled.
#Japan twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

7) Jifuku-ji's (地福寺) "Higiri Yakushi" (日限薬師)🕳️

The temple's 'Medicine Buddha' holds a stone with a hole into which 5 coloured threads are passed. People with hearing difficulties hold the thread & think of a future date.
On that day they pray again & are said to be cured.

8) Gyokuzō-in (玉蔵院) "Ōkyo's Ghost" (応挙の幽霊)👻

Sadly the temple's precious painting of a ghost, by the famed artist Maruyama Ōkyo (円山応挙 1733-95), went missing after the war.
Ōkyo modeled the painting on an emaciated prostitute (with lung disease) he saw in Nagasaki.

Kekō-ji’s (華光寺) two treasures are counted as one, but in reality there are '8 Wonders of Demizu'.

3 of these have been lost, though it is possible Ōkyo's painting of a ghost (幽霊の図) may well have survived, stolen and sold on to private buyers.

#Kyoto #京都 #Japan #出水

💀RESURRECTION✨

Kannon-ji is indirectly connected to another of Kyōto's great mysteries...'Modori-bashi' (一条戻橋), the 'Bridge of Resurrection'.
Although founded in 1607 by Bairin (梅林), the temple's principal image was created by famed Kamakura period sculptor Kaikei.
#京都

Kaikei sculpted the image of Kannon to replace an even earlier statue that had been lost.
The statue, known for its remarkable powers of (temporary) resurrection, stood originally in Kannon-dō (観音堂), a temple beside the Ichijō Bridge (一条戻橋) at Horikawa Ichijō (堀川一条).

Kannon-dō was known also as the 'Hall of 1000 People' (千人堂 'Sennin-dō'), a hint at how large the original temple was.

In 918 the monk Jōzō Kisho (浄蔵貴所) met his father's funeral cortège on the bridge. He asked the nearby statue of Kannon to help him say goodbye in person.

The statue obliged and Jōzō's father returned to life long enough to say farewell.

After this time people came in huge numbers to pray for the resurrection of loved ones, especially during war and plague.

In 1390 a particularly bad pestilence struck and bodies piled high.

At the time of the plague Yamana Shigeuji (山名重氏) died and was brought to the temple for funeral rites.
As the head priest was performing a 'Chineki-sai' (鎮疫祭 -a ritual to dispel evil spirits) the corpse got up! Within moments the dead man was fully alive once more.
#Kyoto

Between 1596-1615 the hall was moved to its current site and re-founded as Kannon-ji (観音寺).

You can read all about Ichijō Modori-bashi (一条戻橋), the 'Bridge of Resurrection', here⬇️


🎉*the end*🙇‍♂️
(thank you for reading along)
#FolkloreThursday