The Sarutahiko Dochu Jinja Project

 

My creativity derives from the earth.
I come from Iwata City in Shizuoka Prefecture. As elsewhere in Japan, there are thousands of sacred spirits (kami1) associated with everyday life. We worship at a household altar dedicated to the Shinto kami every morning and evening. We pay visits to a small Shinto shrine in the garden that is dedicated to the earth kami. We close our hands in prayer before the Buddhist altar of our ancestors. This was the environment in which I grew up. It was just so natural for me to believe that kami were alive in everything.

 

I started to take artistic expression seriously at the age of fifteen. During my twenties, I developed a strong attraction to the Jomon Period2 (13,000–900 BC) and attempted to express, through paintings, the world as it was seen through Jomon eyes. The clay figures and baked earthenware of the period are alive with the strength of the Jomon people. To my mind, they stood in awe of the earth in every aspect of their existence and were aware of the cycle connecting the soil with themselves. I felt their strength and their awareness of this cycle in all we know about their lives, including their eating habits, the construc- tion of dwellings and their rituals.

 

In those times, people believed in a type of earth kami3 called Kunitsu- kami who protected the land of Japan. Of these, Sarutahiko-no-mikoto is a rather unusual one. He is particularly well respected; people have a sense of affinity with him. He is also famous as the kami of eight forked ways; the one who stands between heaven and earth as a go-between. In this role of earth-bound mediator, he is also regarded as the kami of harmony. In addition, he is also known as the kami of guidance, governing the earth from his place at the junction of eight paths. Indeed, in a story called Tenson Korin, one of the myths in the Kojiki4, he leads a party of heavenly kami to the Land of Bountiful Rice5, one of the old names for Japan.

 

My desire was to express the significance of this harmony that Sarutahiko-no-mikoto represents in the form of art. I made a proposal to an association dedicated to the study of Sarutahiko-no-mikoto6, where it was received with open arms and a warm invitation from Sadaaki Ujitoko, former chief priest of the Sarutahiko Jinja in Ise7. As a result, on October 12, 2008, an art project dedicated to the shrine and consisting of my work “Sarutahiko Dochu Jinja” and the dance Michihiraki Kagura8 came to fruition within the grounds of Sarutahiko Jinja. Sarutahiko Dochu Jinja was built behind the main shrine near the omita (sacred paddy field).

 

My wish is that art will act as a mediator, linking people together while also developing a beautiful harmony in which heaven, earth and human beings are all connected.

 

Toraji Hiroyuki