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Summary
Travel is an act for human beings to visit new places and experience different cultures and histories. Through travel, people can actually feel historical events and people’s lives by visiting historical places and cultural heritage sites, and can gain a deeper understanding of history and broaden their own perspectives. In this section, we will discuss the historical background of the trip and the places visited based on Ryotaro Shiba’s “Kaido yuku” (On the Road) about this journey and history.
Kaidou wo yukuVol. 21 Geibi no michi.
In the previous article, I described the Kobe walk. This time, we will talk about the Geibi Road.
Geibi no Michi
This trip will take us to Hiroshima Prefecture, also known as Aki and Bingo. The journey began at Hiroshima Station and took us along Route 54 to Honjo City, Yoshida, which was the base of the Mori Clan, famous for the anecdote of the three arrows, and Miyoshi, where many ancient burial mounds are located.
In “On the Road,” there are many stories involving religion and Kyoto University. In this edition of Geibi no Michi, the story begins with the Aki Monks.
As for religious sects, the story focuses on Shinran’s followers (Ichimukai sect, Honganji sect, and Jodo Shinshu sect), which were formed from the Muromachi period to the Warring States period. (The aforementioned reporter’s time was spent specifically at Honganji.)
The Ikkyu sect left behind few artistic elements such as karesansui gardens and Gozan literature, as the Zen sect did, but rather eliminated superstition to an extreme degree. In other words, there are few folk tales in Aki and Bingo. Furthermore, while the management of temples in other sects was based on land and forests donated by landowners, the Shinshu sect had no land, forests, or other temple lands, and its followers brought in money and grain to build and maintain temples. Therefore, it is estimated that the areas where Shinshu flourished must have been relatively affluent.
The Mikawa Monks in the Tokai region and the Kaga Monks in the Echizen region had a strong spirit of self-reliance and resisted the lords’ attempts to control them and take away their property (which is why Oda Nobunaga tried to eliminate them thoroughly), while the Aki Monks were exceptional in that they did not seem to fight with the local lords during the Warring States period.
The reason for this is attributed to the domestic political skills of Mori Motonari, who was in charge of Aki at that time.
The Aki/Bingo trip begins in a small mountain town called Yoshida in Aki (Hiroshima Prefecture), which was the headquarters of Mori Motonari. The town of Yoshida is located on Route 54, which connects Hiroshima and Matsue in Shimane Prefecture, 45 kilometers, or a little over one hour, from Hiroshima.
Before going to Yoshida-cho, I visited Katsuenji Temple in Kabe (a town on the border of Hiroshima City entering the mountains), where he described the “Sangyo Yuuran,” the ideological dimension of Shinshu.
Before discussing the “Sangyo Yuuran,” I would like to describe the flow of Shinshu, especially in the Jodo sect. Honen brought back from China the scriptures of the Pure Land Sect, which were included in the Mahayana Buddhism and the Prajnaparamita Sutra, and left Mount Hiei. This became the Jodo sect. Shinran, a disciple of Honen, removed the impurities of Honen’s Pure Land Buddhism, and established the true Jodo Shinshu system. Jodo Shinshu teaches that all people, no matter their sins, whether they run away from Nyorai or not, no matter how they behave, no matter who they are, will be saved and taken to the Western Pure Land. It is not a spell to go to the Pure Land, but a voice of gratitude to the Buddha for saving one’s life no matter what. This is very different from the Buddhism that had existed until then.
Therefore, from the middle of the Edo period, Honganji, the center of Jodo Shinshu, introduced the idea of sangyo, or the three karma of prayer and invocation. In contrast, the idea of “sangyo” (the three karma) was introduced from the center of Hongwanji.
The “Sangyo Yuuran” incident took place in response to this trend, and was fought on the grounds that it was completely different from Shinran’s original idea. This incident involved the Shogunate and ultimately resulted in a return to the original teachings.
After the aforementioned discussion of religion, we returned to the subject of degrees, and Hiroshima entered the mountains just beyond Kabe. It is stated that when one enters the mountains and climbs 20 km to a point called Kamine, the water there does not flow to the Seto Inland Sea side but to Matsue (formerly Izumo Province) on the Sea of Japan side, 150 km away. Based on such topographical features, Ryotaro Shiba states that the culture of Aki no Kuni (Hiroshima Prefecture) from the Seto Inland Sea is limited to the area along the sea, and that the culture of Izumo no Kuni (paddy rice farming, iron sand manufacturing, and unique mythology) belongs to the cultural sphere of Izumo no Kuni once one enters a few tens of kilometers into the area. As evidence of this, he noted that in the area of Miyoshi, further up Route 54, there is a concentration of ancient tombs characteristic of the Izumo country.
Back to the journey again. Halfway between Miyoshi and Kamine is the town of Yoshida. As you can see from the map below, Yoshida is a small basin surrounded by mountains.
In the mountains northeast of this town is Koriyama Castle, where Mori Motonaga used to live, and his tomb is also located.
After seeing the tomb of Mori Motonaga in Yoshida Town, we headed to Sarukake Castle in Tajibi. This is the place where Motonaga Mori spent his childhood, located on a small hill-like mountain along the Tajibi River that flows west of Yoshida Town.
Mori Motonaga grew up here, and the Mori clan itself was only a weak and powerful clan threatened by Amago no Tsunehisa, who at that time was expanding his power in the Matsue area up Route 54. The name Amago Motonaga reminds me of the one played by the late Ken Ogata in the historical drama “Mori Motonaga” broadcast in 1997.
Mori Motonari originally had an elder brother named Kogen, but when his neighbor Ouchi Yoshi-oki (from whom Kogen got the character “興”) went to Kyoto during the Onin War, he joined forces with Gen and was killed in battle, becoming the head of the clan. Thereafter, while hiding in the shadow of battles between the Ouchi and Amago clans, he repeatedly wielded power and gradually expanded his influence. After Tō no Seiken, a subordinate of the Ouchi clan, destroyed the Ouchi clan by subjugation, he defeated Tō no Seiken in the Battle of Itsukushima, where the Itsukushima Shrine is located.
After the death of Amago Tsunehisa, he defeated his son, Amago Haruhisa, at the Battle of Tsukiyama-Tonda Castle, and ruled a vast territory that included present-day Yamaguchi, Hiroshima, Shimane, and Tottori. Afterwards, he joined the Western forces in Sekigahara and was confined to Yamaguchi (Choshu), which became the center of the Tokugawa shogunate’s power at the end of the Edo period, as described in “Kaido yuku: Choshu-ro” (Road to Choshu).
When the Amago clan fell, Yamanaka Shikanosuke, a vassal of the clan, made a vow to revive the clan.
The trip then heads to Miyoshi, where there is a concentration of 2,000 ancient burial mounds, and ends with a visit to ancient Izumo.
Geibi no Kuni (Hiroshima) will be a region with a unique culture popular among overseas tourists.
In the next article, I will discuss a walk in Yokohama.
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