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Hiraizumi Fujiwara Festival
(Hiraizumi Fujiwara Matsuri)
***** Location: Hiraizumi, Iwate, Japan
***** Season: Late Spring
***** Category: Observance
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Explanation
Hiraizumi Fujiwara Matsuri
平泉藤原祭 (ひらいずみふじわらまつり)
Fujiwara Festival in Spring
春の藤原祭り
May 1-5
The Spring Festival begins on May 1 with memorial services for the four generations of Fujiwaras who ruled the area through the twelfth century. It reaches its peak on May 3, when roughly 100 people recreate Minamoto no Yoshitsune’s Eastern Flight in a parade from Motsuji to Chusonji.
With long parades in traditional robes.
Parade of children and sacred dancing. Athletic games are also held.
During the festival there is a Noh performance at a thatched roof stage near the temple.
. Minamoto no Yoshitsune 源の義経 (1159 - 1189) .
- Introduction -
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Hiraizumi (平泉町, Hiraizumi-chō)
is a town located in Nishiiwai District, Iwate, Japan. It was the home of the Hiraizumi Fujiwaras for about 100 years in the late Heian era and most of the following Kamakura period. At the same time it served as the de facto capital of Oshu, an area containing nearly a third of the Japanese land area
The first structure built in Hiraizumi may have been Hakusan Shrine on top of Mount Kanzan (Barrier Mountain). A writer in 1334 recorded that the shrine was already 700 years old. Although rebuilt many times, the same shrine is still standing in the same location.
In about 1100 Fujiwara no Kiyohira (藤原清衡) moved his home from Fort Toyoda in present day Esashi Ward, Oshu City to Mount Kanzan in Hiraizumi. This location was significant for several reasons. Kanzan is situated at the junction of two rivers, the Kitakami and the Koromo. Traditionally the Koromo River served as the boundary between Japan to the south and the Emishi peoples to the north. By building his home south of the Koromo, Kiyohira (half Emishi himself) demonstrated his intention to rule Oshu without official sanction from the court in Kyoto. Kanzan was also directly on the Frontier Way, the main road leading from Kyoto to the northern lands as they opened up. Kanzan was also seen as the exact center of Oshu which stretched from the Shirakawa Barrier in the south to Sotogahama in present day Aomori Prefecture.
Kiyohira built the large temple complex on Kanzan known as temple Chūson-ji 中尊寺（ちゅうそんじ）.
The first structure was a large pagoda at the very top of the mountain. In conjunction with this he placed small umbrella reliquaries (kasa sotoba) every hundred meters along the Frontier Way decorated with placards depicting Amida Buddha painted in gold. Other pagodas, temples and gardens followed including the Konjikido 金色堂, also called "Shining Hall" (Hikarido 光堂), a jewel box of a building intended to represent the Buddhist Pure Land and the final resting place of the Fujiwara lords.Hiraizumi's golden age lasted for nearly 100 years, but after the fall of the Fujiwaras the town sank back into relative obscurity, and most of the buildings that gave the town its cultural prominence were destroyed. When the poet Matsuo Bashō saw the state of the town in 1689 he penned a famous haiku about the impermanence of human glory:
Natsu kusa ya! Tsuwamono-domo ga yume no ato
Ah, summer grasses!
All that remains
Of the warriors dreams.
The town's historical monuments and sites have been inscribed as
UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 2011.
Fujiwara no Hidehira 藤原秀衡 (1122? - 1187)
was the third ruler of Northern Fujiwara in Mutsu Province, Japan, the grandson of Fujiwara no Kiyohira.
He offered shelter to the young Minamoto no Yoshitsune, who was escaping Kyoto. For many years, Hidehira was Yoshitsune's benefactor and protector, and it was from Hidehira's territory that Yoshitsune joined his brother at the start of the Genpei War. Later, when Yoshitsune incurred his brother Minamoto no Yoritomo's wrath, he returned to Hiraizumi, and lived undisturbed for a time. Yoshitsune was still Hidehira's guest when the latter died in 1187.
Hidehira had his son promise to continue to shelter Yoshitune and his retainer Benkei, but the son gave into Yoritomo and surrounded the castle with his troops, forcing Yoshitsune to commit seppuku (his head would be preserved in sake and given to Yoritomo) and resulting in the famous standing death of Benkei. Yoritomo destroyed the Fujiwara domain and killed Hidehira's son.
Hidehira's corpse became a mummy, preserved today within the Konjiki-dō of Chūson-ji.
© More in the WIKIPEDIA !
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秀衡塗 Hidehira-nuri Lacquerware
Designated a traditional craft of Iwate Prefecture, Hiraizumi’s Hidehira-nuri lacquerware has been widely manufactured in Japan. Its simple, refined aesthetic presents a reflection of the history and natural features of the region of its birth.
Its origin
traces back to Fujiwara Hidehira, who controlled the Tohoku area during the Heian Period (794-1185), including Hiraizumi in Iwate Prefecture. When he created great Buddhist structures in Hiraizumi such as the Konjikido (Golden Hall) of Chusonji Temple, he ordered the craftsmen he had invited from Kyoto to also manufacture new types of lacquerware. In scriptures made in the Kansei years (1789-1801) of the Edo Period, this episode is mentioned as “Hiraizumi’s Hidehira-nuri,” and it is also mentioned that the craft was highly prized by tea ceremony masters. The name still holds to this day.
With their striking glamour,
golden Hidehira bowls are said to be both the origin and symbol of Hiraizumi’s Hidehira-nuri. When Hidehira asked the craftsmen to make the new lacquerware, he specified that they should use locally produced gold and lacquer. The bowls were made by painting lacquer onto the base wood, decorating it with designs such as Genji-gumo (the Genji cloud), a popular wave-shaped cloud motif where clouds were represented with golden sheets, and kicho (lucky symbols) featuring paintings of lucky animals, and finally accented with gold sheets cut into rhombus shapes. This traditional decoration style used black, vermilion and gold as its fundamental colors, and the form still continues to this day.
Production of Hidehira-nuri
can be divided into four steps. First, according to the intended use of the product, timber such as tochi (Japanese horse chestnut) and keyaki (Japanese zelkova) are carefully dried out—a process that can take anywhere from one to ten years—to form the base wood. Lacquer is then painted onto the base wood and polished to form a foundation. The third step, painting, involves layers of lacquer being painted onto the foundation. In the final step, gold sheets are applied to the object to complete the design.
Today,
Hiraizumi’s Hirahide-nuri can take the form of tableware, traditional kokeshi Japanese dolls, smart phone cases and various other products. With its refined design, beautiful gloss of lacquer and glamorous golden sheets, Hirahide-nuri is a pleasure simply to gaze upon.
- source : japan-brand.jnto.go.jp/crafts -
. Mingei - Iwate Folk Art - 岩手県 .
. urushi 漆 laquer ware .
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. Tsuwamono, Benkei and Yoshitsune 弁慶と義経
More about Hiraizumi and the famous haiku by Basho
. Temple Motsuji (Mootsuuji 毛越寺)
and the dance Ennen no Mai 延年の舞, another KIGO
. 弁慶の力餅 Benkei no Chikaramochi
Rice dumplings for the strong Benkei
Served as a local speciality.
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Hiraizumi's other main festivals are
Hiraizumi Daimonji Festival, O-Bon, August 16
Autumn Fujiwara Festival November 1-3
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Worldwide use
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Things found on the way
Fudoo Doo 不動堂 Fudo Hall at Chuzon-Ji
source : www.chusonji.or.jp/guide
This hall has been erected in 1977.
On the 28th of each month fire rituals for Fudo are held here.
The statue of Fudo Myo-O dates back to 1684, offered by the wish of the daimyo of Sendai, Date Tsunamura 伊達綱村 (1659 - 1719) for peace in the realm.
. Fudō Myō-ō, Fudoo Myoo-Oo 不動明王 Fudo Myo-O
Acala Vidyârâja – Vidyaraja – Fudo Myoo .
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HAIKU
百姓の子が能習ふ藤原祭
hyakusho no ko ga noo narau Fujiwara sai
a farmer's child
learns to perform Noh ---
Fujiwara festival
Suzuki Takuo 鈴木田句男
夜神楽の大蛇小さくたたまるる
yokagura no daija chiisaku tatamaruru
the eight-headed
serpent folds so small . . .
night performance of Noh
Shirato Harue 白戸春恵
More Japanese haiku about Hiraizumi
http://www.town.hiraizumi.iwate.jp/scripts/hiraizumi/kanko-rekisi/lib/bun_15c.html
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光堂より一筋の雪解水
Hikaridoo yori hitosuji no yukige mizu
from the Golden Hall
one straight line of
melt water
Arima Akito 有馬朗人 (1930 - )
Scientist and Haiku Poet
ISBN: 1-929820-01-1
. Arima Akito, the Haiku Poet
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External LINK
quote
This month of March 2011 has been one of the greatest challenges faced by the people of the Tohoku. The magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami hit the heartland of the ancient Tohoku, and though the population has changed since then I say with a heavy heart that this was the historical area where many Emishi had lived in the distant past. To put this in historical context there was another earthquake and tsunami that occurred almost in the exact same location some one-thousand, one-hundred and forty years ago in AD 869.
The earthquake known as the Jougan Earthquake (Jogan Earthquake 貞観地震) and tsunami (occuring during Emperor Jougan's reign) that followed swept through what is now Taga Castle 多賀城 and the Castle town that had developed around it during and after the Tohoku Wars. In 869 there was much loss of life, and was the scene of great devastation again this month. At this time it may not be appropriate to address the loss of archaeological and historical sites but I cannot help but wonder how these sites have fared.
. Emishi, External LINKS
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. Japan after the BIG earthquake March 11, 2011
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