Two weekends ago I went to Nikko, a UNESCO world heritage site. To those outside of Japan Nikko will have very little or no meaning, so I will explain a little bit about Japanese history. As some people know, Japan has an emperor and that empirical line has “ruled” Japan for as long as most written history goes. The true origins are unknown although there is a first recorded instance of someone claiming the descent from the gods and that is where the empirical line can legitimately be traced to. In any case, the emperor has not always been the actual ruler, the present being one of those times. Two things have to be considered. First; although the emperor has not always been the one in control, the line has always been recognized as the legitimate heir to Japan, as it were. Which enters my second point, Japan; as it were. Japan has not always been what we think of it now. Most early history crowds around the areas of present day Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokyo and that was Japan. It is not until the last 500 years or so that anyone gave any concern to what was to the north of those regions, like where I live now, or to the giant island of Hokkaido. Okinawa is a different, but similar story, but I digress.
The point of all of this is that the unification of Japan, the establishment of a country, and who ruled what when, changes so who ruled what when gets slippery.
So, why the history lesson? Well, Nikko is the burial site of one of the most famous of Japanese people, Ieyasu Tokugawa. He was the first shogun to unite all of Japan, which means he was the first to wrest control of Japan, as it was, from the hands of everyone else, including the figure head emperor of that time. You see, for a large portion of recent Japanese history the country has been ruled not by emperor but by shogun. When we westerners picture old Japan, full of warriors and temples, etc. this is probably what we are picturing, the time of the shoguns.
Along with Ieyasu, his grandson Iemitsu is buried at Nikko. There is also the Futarasan Shrine, which dates to the year 767. That is enough to be pretty cool. Before the discovery of the Americas, before the Magna Carta, before… you get the point, and you can touch it! There is also the famous Three Wise Monkeys, yes, you know them. Hear no, see no, speak no EVIL! There is also a fourth, do no evil, but he was out doing evil so I didn't see him. It’s those monkeys and that is where they come from! Well… at least that is where their fame comes from, the proverb is likely much older. How about that?
Back to Ieyasu; the reason he is important is that he was the first shogun to consolidate power under one shogun. This ushered in about 300 years of rule by his family that ended shortly after the opening of Japan to the west by Perry’s black ships in the 1850’s. That is why he is important. When I asked Aya why he picked Nikko for his burial place she didn’t know. Later, after we had wandered around a bit she said that he had never been to Nikko. I am still wondering why he would want to be buried there. It is a beautiful place, but I can’t see someone wanting to spend eternity somewhere they had never been given that they could have easily gone there during their lifetime to check it out.
There are a few animal carvings around the temple grounds. The first and most famous is the three monkey mentioned above. The second is the sleeping cat. People were piled up to take a picture of this cat, why I didn’t know. I snapped a picture of it because I happened to be walking under the gate and thought it might make a good story later. Turns out that the sculptor Jingoro, was quite well known and that the spirit of Ieyasu is believed to reside in the sculpture. The third, and I think most interesting sculpture is of two elephants. As you can see, one elephant is very strange looking, kind of furry and just generally grotesque looking while the other looks more like a rhino/tiger cross. This is not what the affect artist intended. You see, the artist, Kanyo Tanyu, never saw an elephant! Yes, that is right, never saw one! At the time, it hardly mattered, since no one else had seen an elephant either. I can imagine his thought process, "hm...yes, fur, three claws, a monstrous eye, perfect... yes!"
You would think with all this interesting and beautiful stuff in one place (and there is more than I mention) that my favorite part would be something old or ornate, but it was not. Toward the beginning of our walk around the grounds we went up to a shrine on top of a hill. Around the corner from the main objects was a very small shrine built into a tree. Aya jumped in line to pray as I waited and in line with her was a mother with a boy of about 6 years old. As they stood in line the boy asked, “mama, what are we doing here?” she said, “well, we will put this money in the box and then pray for what we want.” And the boy said, “I want to be a ninja!” and started prancing around like a ninja/pony cross. Everyone in line had a good giggle. It was the best thing I saw all day. Aya said it was refreshing to know that even Japanese kids want to grow up to be ninjas, and that someday, maybe, he might get his wish.
