Oiwa Shrine and Mt. Oiwa – Mt. Oiwa, where gods are

Good evening.
Thank you very much for visiting this blog.

I visited Oiwa Shrine and Mt. Oiwa in Hitachi City in Ibaraki Prefecture the other day.
I’d like to write about this trip today.

As I will mention in later articles, I had many mysterious experiences on this trip, which made the trip very impressive for me.
Therefore, I will divide this report into 5 pieces (*).
In advance, I’d like to inform that there’s no report about Nihonshu or restaurants in today’s article.

(*) It was 3 piece-report when I published it at first, but I changed to 5 part composition later otherwise each blogs became over 6000 letters.

Contents

About Oiwa Shrine

First of all, I write about Oiwa Shrine briefly.
(My explanations are based on guide plates at the shrine and Oiwa Shrine’s website.)

Oiwa Shrine is in Hitachi City, Ibaraki Prefecture.

The deities of the shrine are 188 gods including Kunino Tokotachino kami.
Kunino Tokotachino kami is the god who appears first in Japan’s old myth, and he is created the world.

The year when the shrine was established is not known yet.
It appears in an old record about Ibaraki Prefecture, “Hitachi Fudoki”, which is one of the records written in the Nara period in which cultures and histories of various areas of Japan in those times are written.

In the record, gods were already enshrined in Mt. Oiwa, which Oiwa Shrine deifies from a distance.
Oiwa Shrine should have been established by then.

After that, from the late 12th century to the 16th century, a thought that Japanese gods are originally Buddhas who appeared in different appearances for people became common.
Therefore, a temple was built in the shrine’s property, and Mt. Oiwa was worshiped by people as a mountain of gods.
The Romon in the second photo above is showing the idea (Romon is the gate and usually placed at temples).

In the Edo period, this place was ruled by Mito Tokugawa Family which is famous for Mito Komon (Tokugawa Mitsukuni).
Oiwa Shrine was patronized by Mito domain as the place for praying as Mitsukuni had a big interest in Shintoism (Japanese ancient religion of gods).
He studied Japan’s ancient cultures and history by ordering editing a history book, “Dai Nihonshi”.

About Mt. Oiwa

I’d like to introduce Mt. Oiwa next.
Mt. Oiwa is a mountain of 492 meters height locating in back of Oiwa Shrine.

How to read its Chinese letters (御岩山=OIWA SAN) comes from a website by “Yama to Keikoku sha”, “YAMAKEI ONLINE”. (I found it when I looked up “御岩山” on the internet.)
“OIWA SAN” is the same sound as Japanese famous ghost “お岩さん=OIWA SAN”, so I personally call the mountain “Oiwa Yama” (Yama is another way of reading “山=mountain”).

As I already mentioned, Mt. Oiwa is a sacred place from ancient times, and some remains of places for religious service were found there.

In addition, there are many small shrines on this mountain.
There is a place which is said to be where a great goddess, Amaterasu Omikami, hid herself in a famous Japanese myth “Amano Iwato” story (you cannot enter this place now because of the damage by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011).

After the 12th century, when the idea of syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism spread, the mountain was used for Shugendo (mountain ascetism) by Yamabushi (monks practicing mountain ascetism).

I got to know about Mt. Oiwa in around November in 2013 (maybe).
I was into visiting “Power Spot” (places which have mystical power) at that time, and I found an article on the internet saying that there’s a place which is one of Japan’s strongest “Power Spot” in Ibaraki Prefecture.
The place was Mt. Oiwa.

You can feel how it’s great from such a story;

When an astronaut of Apollo-14, Mr. Edgar Mitchell saw the earth from the space.
He found a place which was so bright on the land.
Searching from the latitude and the longitude, he found that the place was Oiwa Shrine and Mt. Oiwa.
I imagine that it was like this below (this is just my image).

This man landed on the moon.
I hear that many astronauts get interested in mysterious things.
When you look up “Edgar Mitchell” on the internet, you will find UFO, aliens, and JFK’s Assassination.
Probably, he wasn’t exception.

Because his episodes are so mysterious, it is not sure if he really saw a pole of light.
But he saw it indeed.
He visited Oiwa Shrine later, and he talked his experience and the reason why he visited the shrine to the Guji (chief priest). (reference article)

I thought that I couldn’t miss it when I first found Oiwa Shrine and Mt. Oiwa because of the above episodes.
Since then, I’ve been visiting there once in May and once from September to November every year.

Reason why I came Oiwa Shrine and Mt. Oiwa

The day I visited Oiwa Shrine and Mt. Oiwa was May 4th of 2018, the day before yesterday.
I had a very bad health condition because of overworking last year, and I remember that I stayed at home to sleep or to write blogs in holidays.
This year, maybe thanks to “working style reform”, which is topic in Japan in 2018, overworking became less, and my health became OK to go out.

So, I decided to go out after a long time because it was a long holiday.
I chose Oiwa Shrine and Mt. Oiwa as the destination because I had been there regularly for 2 years until the year before.
As I already mentioned, Oiwa Shrine and Mt Oiwa are Japan’s strongest “Power Spot”, and I visit there about once in a half year to receive the mysterious power.

Of course, it’s not like what we often see in cartoons that a person who stands on the spot, gets something like electric shock and filled up with mysterious power.
I understand that their power comes from relaxing and refreshing by walking in deep green woods and getting moderately tired.

Besides, somehow I always felt that my soul and body got recovered every time I visited there.
I make it habit to visit there once in a half year.
I want to do it once in 3 months if I could, but it’s difficult for some reasons.

There was actually another special reason why I visited there.
I wrote about Yakuyoke (avoidance of bad luck in Buddhist way) at Nishi Arai Daishi before.
I had safe and calm days after Yakuyoke for a while.

However, in these 2 or 3 weeks, I had many bad lucks such as gout attacks again and again, and some problems about human relations.
It was as if I was cursed by someone, or possessed by a devil.

I decided to visit Oiwa Shrine this time because it was a long holiday.
I thought that I should have received Yakuyoke in not only Buddhist way, but also Shintoism way.
I checked the shrine’s website and found that they do prayers.
So I planned to receive it as well as healing my soul and body.

I’d like to stop here, and will write about my journey from Tokyo to Hitachi Station, and to Oiwa Shrine.