Monday

The entrance to the temple grounds.


Some of the fox shrines at the temple.

At lunch today Betsy, a fellow art teacher and one of my Iwate group, took me to a fantastic temple she had found not very far from our hotel. It was quite extensive and had numerous shrines of foxes. It is the Toyokawa Inari Betsuin Temple Complex. Of the foxes, the brochure reads, "It is said that, in ancient times, the third son of Emperor Juntoku underwent a spiritual experience in which the deity Dakini-Shinten appeared on the back of a white fox with a rice plant slung over his back. The prince embodied this experience inot the stature of Dakini-Shinten. The statue was later brought to the residence of Ooka Echizen-no-kami during the Edo era and was finally enshrined in Toyokawa Inari Betsuin at its present location in 1887."