Б@Б@Б@Welcome to
Minakuchi-shrine's
Japanese homepage !
Sorry , only English .

Japanese national flag
Address : 3-14 Miyano-mae, Minakuchi-cho Koka-city Shiga-pref. 528-0013 , Japan.




Shrine


The position in Japan
Minakuchi shrine is in Shiga prefecture next to Kyoto prefecture in the Japanese middle. More a neighbor adjoins it with Mie prefecture with Ise Shrine as well. The biggest lake called Lake Biwa is in Shiga prefecture. Minakuchi-cho is in the southeast part in Shiga prefecture.


About the shrine
The three next elements are necessary to define religion. In other words, elements are the founder, a doctrine and the sacred book. However, there are no all these elements in the Japanese shrine Shinto. I am hoping to appreciate a Japanese shrine Shinto in the foreign country.
There are 80,000 shrines and 21,000 Shinto priests in Japan.
We call Kami who says with the Christianity God in the Shinto shrine.

About the Minakuchi shrine
One of those is the Minakuchi shrine. The Kami's name of the Minakuchi shrine is Oh-minakuchi-sukune-no-mikoto. This person is a man whom it is said to that it had Minakuchi-cho which was this place reclaimed.
Minakuchi shrine's torii.

About the TORII
There is a torii as a mark which shows the place of the shrine straightforwardly.
This shape is used as the Japanese map's mark.
This is the kind of myohjin torii though there are some kinds of this torii.
Thisshows that it is the territory where a back from this is sacred. The people pass through this after bowing a little in front of the torii when it passes through this. This picture is Minakuchi shrine's torii. Height is about 7m and width is about 9.5m



The manners of the prayer
1. First, fold a waist at right angles, and bow the back from the straight posture until it becomes horizontal.
2. Do this movement twice.
3. Next, put both hands together in the height of the breast.
4. Lead a right hand a little, and move it.
5. Strike it slowly twice.
6. And, take down a hand after you put both hands properly and together again and put a prayer.
7. Next, do the movement of 1 once.
These are the basic manners of the worship in the shrine.
We call this "Ni-hai Ni-hakushu Ippai" in Japanese.

Festival



The Minakuchi festival.

About the MINAKUCHI-shrine's festival:
The picture on the right is the MINAKUCHI-shrine's festival.On the 20th of April , this festival is held in this shrine every year . It is the time when the cherry blossoms which are the Japanese national flower bloom magnificently. Can you see the huge cars with four wheels in this picture ? We call them the HIKIYAMAs. There are 16 hikiyamas in this town . These were made over 2ВV0 years ago. And they were made of woods . I hope you'll be sure to visit this festival.

The largest HIKIYAMA's size
width
height
length
wheel's diameter
3.70m
6.30m
4.80m
1.50m




People play music in this HIKIYAMA. We call the music MINAKUCHI-BAYASHI.
They use one big drum, two small drums , two bells like the tambourine and three flutes as the MINAKUCHI-BAYASHI's musical instruments . By the way , you can listen to this MINAKUCHI-BAYASHI .





Please visit this Japanese traditional MINAKUCHI festival if you get the chance.






БЪ



I'm looking forward to seeing in this Minakuchi-shrine !







I am sorry in poor English.


Return to Ishioh's webpage written in Japanese.