The Polestar

Someone new is in my life…I think? I’m not certain, as it could simply be My Lady in another one of her many guises. The entity in question, anyway, is the Sino-Japanese star deity known as Myōken.

Myōken is most often said to be the deity of the polestar, but his identity is quite fluid, hence my confusion. He is known by many other names, and is associated with many other deities in Japanese culture. Japanese polytheism (which is not limited to Shinto by any means) is complex and syncretic, and you can never be sure which deity you’ve got hold of.

I came to My Lady Saraswati via her Japanese persona Benzaiten-sama. Yet Benzaiten-sama is not only Saraswati; she is seen as the Bodhisattva Kannon, the Devi Sri, and various others. Her iconography overlaps with Oinari-sama, Dakiniten, and most importantly here, Myōken. Both Myōken and Benzaiten are associated with dragons and magic jewels, for instance.

Currently, the cultus I give Myōken is limited to observing the actual stars in the sky, and his shrine is a homemade paper talisman taped to the ceiling above My Lady’s shrine. I feel She has called me to the star god for a reason, if only to gain a greater understanding of Her.

My Favorite Benzaiten

Aoigaoka Keisei, “Benzaiten Seated on a White Dragon”
Edo Period woodblock print, Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is one of my favorite images of Benzaiten-sama. It is (I believe, though I am not sure) a scene from the famous medieval epic Heike Monogatari. Benzaiten-sama was said to be the patroness of the Heike clan (better known in historical sources as the Taira). Yet she is sometimes said to have withdrawn her support of the Taira due to the hubris of Taira no Kiyomori, the clan patriarch. This in turn led to their defeat by the newly ascendant Minamoto clan, who would establish the first permanent shogunate.

My Polytheism

I found my polytheism in the suburbs of Tokyo, in a Shinto Shrine to a Buddhist Goddess called Benzaiten-sama. She is better known as the Hindu goddess Saraswati, but She is worshipped across pretty much all of South and Southeast Asia under many names. In Tibet alone She has a myriad of epithets, most famously Yangchenma, “goddess of melodious sound.”

In Japan though, she is Benzaiten-sama. She came across the waters from China and Korea with books and Buddhism, while I came roaring out of the skies jet-lagged and stumbling.

I’d worked with Her for a few months, and already fallen deeply in love, but it was not until I’d stood on the grounds of one of Her many shrines and met fellow believers that I truly understood what that love meant.

My polytheism was born of hospitality for both foreign mortals and foreign gods.

My polytheism is community in diversity

Medicine Buddha

The Medicine Buddha  is a popular figure in Mahayana Buddhism, especially in Tibet and Japan, as well as China. In Sanskrit, his name Bhaișajyaguru, and he features in a sutra entitled Bhaișajya Guru Vaidūrya Prabhā Rāja Sutra, which can be translated as “Medicine King Master and Lapis Lazuli Light.” The title alludes both to his function as a Buddha of healing, and to his trademark association (at least in Tibetan Buddhism) with the color deep blue.

Bhaișajyaguru is said to be a guardian of the Eastern direction, and may actually supplant The Buddha Akshobhya, who is far more commonly said to fill this role. Just like the far more famous Amitabha, he also rules over his own Pure Land, known as Vaidūryanirbhāsa or “Pure Lapis Lazuli.”

In Japan, he was known as Yakushi, and his popularity no doubt was bolstered by the fact that he plays an important role in The Lotus Sutra, which is arguably the most influential Sutra in Japanese Buddhist traditions. (Anyone wanna argue with me on that?) His cult in Japan is very old, dating back to the seventh century. In the late eleventh century, the author of the Sarashina Nikki (a famous literary diary/memoir) wrote of her attachment to a statue of Yakushi that had been made in her size, and her grief at being forced to leave it behind in a move.

 

Little Surprises

Guess what I found at the local antique market? Happy Anniversary!

Blessed

Blessed is My Lady Benzaiten the goddess
For gamblers, whores, and thieves – Blessed are they
Who will call upon My Lady? Liars, the jealous, and me

Edo period print of a courtesan as Benzaiten-sama. At this time, the goddess was a traditional patroness for courtesans and other sex-workers, as well as “jealous women”, and professional gamblers (the forerunners of today’s yakuza)

A Foxes’ Wedding

In Japan, rain falling from a clear sky is called a “Foxes’ Wedding”

To Inari-Sama

She leaves whispers in the greenwood
Sylvan shadows, silver light
Raindrops falling one by one
It’s a foxes’ wedding today

Twilight trails behind her
Sylvan shadows one by one
She leaves raindrops in the forest
It’s a foxes’ wedding today

Silver light is fading
Trailing rainclouds one by one
She leaves twilight in the mountains
It’s a foxes’ wedding today

Raindrops falling in the greenwood
Silver light in sylvan green
She leaves sorrow in the twilight
It’s a foxes’ wedding tonight

Value

https://flic.kr/p/uijwyQ

This jar is nothing of importance to anyone but myself.

I found it at a local antique store the day after I returned from Japan. It’s hand-painted, with highlights in gold ink. The attention to detail is heartbreaking. It was only $12, being sold as a piece of Occupation-era kitsch.

Was it that unimportant?

I wonder who made it. The subject matter doesn’t seem right for something that was made for the US GIs to take home. The Shichi Fukujin cavort across its body and play across the lid. My goddess Benzaiten-sama is there with them of course, as she is one of their number.

It is a beautiful piece of art, taken from its maker and sold for a fraction of its worth. Is it that unimportant?

Is anything that unimportant?

Inokashira-Jinja

Kichijōji’s main tourist draw is the Ghibli museum. It’s certainly the only thing that most Westerners I’ve spoken to are likely to recognize (though most admittedly don’t realize what it is until I mention Spirited Away and/or a few other of Miyazaki-san’s works). It’s not surprising that the neighborhood isn’t a big attraction; it’s a residential area and quite a nice one. It’s not meant to draw foreigners.

However the area is well worth a visit even if you are largely indifferent to anime and manga and have no intention to visit the Ghibli Museum. Inokashira park is simply beautiful, and it is home to my favorite shrine, one to Benzaiten-sama.

I have posted this picture several times on this blog, and it is actually my desktop background at the moment. The Inokashira Jinja is and always will be very dear to me.

Inokashira-Jinja’s history dates back to the tenth century, when a court aristocrat was shipped off to what is now Tokyo, but what was then the middle of nowhere. He brought with him an icon of the goddess Benzaiten-sama. The shrine itself has been in its present location since the end of the twelfth century; it was built under the orders of none other than the very first shogun Minamoto Yoritomo. That first shrine was completed in 1197, though it has been remodeled and even totally rebuilt a number of times over the centuries.

In the Edo period, the shrine was immensely popular with the leading actors of the day, and even during the Meiji era and on through WWII, when other shrines to Benzaiten-sama such as that at Enoshima and in Ueno were shut down or rededicated to native kami, the shrine in Kichijōji remained unopened and undamaged. To this day, it is a hidden jewel worth seeking.

Notes from Benzaiten-sama’s Past

A View of the Benten-do from across Shinobazu Pond in Ueno, Tokyo

Benzaiten-sama has a long history in Japan. She came with The Sutra of Golden Light in the early seventh century, and has never left. Yet there have been times and places where here worship has suffered. During the Meiji era, when Shinto and Buddhism were forcibly separated, Herself was caught painfully in the middle. As Buddhism was defunded and disestablished, her worship as a deva was largely unsustainable. Yet she was so obviously a foreign goddess that neither could she claim to be a kami.

In Enoshima, one of her three most famous shrines, her temple was reverted to a Shinto Shrine in honor of the island goddess Ichikishima-hima. Her famous statue and other icons were dumped in a corner of the worship hall and left for children to play with. They remained there until after the war, when they were restored…but only after having sustained substantial damage. In Ueno, Shinobazu pond was drained and turned into rice paddies – surely due to the increasingly deprivation faced by the citizens of Tokyo as the war progressed. Yet the beloved Inokashira shrine in Kichijōji remained opened and undamaged throughout World War II. It remains a well-kept jewel tucked away in the jewelbox of Inokashira park. And Ueno park is today the most beautiful place I could ever imagine.

Inokashira Jinja in Kichijōji, Tokyo