Budget Amount *help |
¥1,700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000)
Fiscal Year 1998: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
Fiscal Year 1997: ¥1,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000)
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Research Abstract |
Accompanying the division of Buddhism and Shintoism in 1872 Land Development Agency of Hokkaido ordered counties to survey shrines and in the same year delegated Shigekata KIKUCHI who was the deputy chief priest of Sapporo Shrine to the counties of Shirbeshi, Iburi and then Oshima in southwestern Hokkaido. This delegation was based on the decree by the Cabinet of "Shinbutsu-Hanzen-Rei (Rule of judgment of Buddhism and Shintoism)" in 1868 and "DaishoJinja-Ujiko Torishirabe Kisoku (Rule of investigation of shrines)" in 1871 and this investigation aimed at conducting arrangements of mixtured statues of Buddhism and Shintoism and reorganization of shrines and enshrinement. This execution was performed in order to unite and reorganize shrines in Hokkaido as governmental policy of dividing Buddhism and Shintoism. This investigation meant in one sence a start of transformation of previous shrine religious services from the Edo period through early Meiji Period. However in other respect as a r
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esult of detailed spot-surveys and hearings by the same investigater about the shrine origin and shapes of worship objects among major shrines including small shrines such as Goshisha, Keidaisha and Massha in wide areas of western and southwestern Hokkaido, this investigation offered total number of 516 examples of religious services including counties of Shiribeshi (223 samples), Oshima (239 samples) and Iburi (54 samples). The author did not regard these investigated documents about shrines of the early Meiji Period in Hokkaido as simple literatures described in order to perform only political aims, but considered them as reports of volk investigations which showed how the regional shrines were worshiped and made a comparison of each style of religious services by extracting examples which are related to shrine worships in the counties of Shiribeshi, Iburi and Oshima. Previous comparative studies on shrine worships by other authors cut the examples separately as different areas and ages and dealt with the shrines and gods of Inari, Itsukushima, Ebisu, Konpira and Ryujin, which statistically occupy a major part of shrines in Japan and merely pointed out that these shrines are found in large number and they are characteristic in the regions where fisheries of herrings are prevailing. However by the present comparative investigation of styles of beliefs of three areas in western and southwestern Hokkaido it became clear thatworship objects of the shrines are not only one, but it was understood that they were deified complicatedly and were accumulated and fixed in each district muli-layeredly. By excluding large number of beliefs it also became clear that the shrines with least worship objects were deified in peculiar construction in the abovmentioned three areas of Hokkaido. Less
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