Tashima Shrine is a shrine situated on in Yobuko Town now,

Karatsu is a city located in Saga Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, Japan. Its name, formed from the Japanese word roots 唐 ''kara'' (China, or continental East Asia in general), and 津 ''tsu'' (port), signifies its historical importance as a ...

City,

Saga Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu. Saga Prefecture has a population of 809,248 (1 August 2020) and has a geographic area of 2,440 km2 (942 sq mi). Saga Prefecture borders Fukuoka Prefecture to the northeast and Nagasak ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. It is located in the area known as Matsurokoku, which is believed to be the first land of the mainland of

Wakoku Wakoku is the name used by early imperial China and its neighbouring states to refer to the nation usually identified as Japan. There are various theories regarding the extent of power of the early kings of Japan. According to the Book of Sui and ...

as per

Wajinden The ''Wajinden'' refers to the passages in the 30th volume of the Chinese history chronicle ''Records of the Three Kingdoms'' that talk about the Wa people who would later be known as the Japanese people. It describes the mores, geography, and ...

records. It is an important point for safe sea crossings to the continent, and has received significant orders from the central government since ancient times. In earlier times, it was called 'Tajima Niimasu Kaminoyashiro'. It is the only Myojin Taisha in

Hizen Province was an old province of Japan in the area of the Saga and Nagasaki prefectures. It was sometimes called , with Higo Province. Hizen bordered on the provinces of Chikuzen and Chikugo. The province was included in Saikaidō. It did not inclu ...

, and was previously classified as Kokuhei Chusha due to renovations during the

Meiji era The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization b ...

. Currently, it is a beppyo shrine of the

Association of Shinto Shrines The is a religious administrative organisation that oversees about 80,000 Shinto shrines in Japan. These shrines take the Ise Grand Shrine as the foundation of their belief. It is the largest Shrine Shinto organization in existence. Description ...

. It is associated with

Matsura Sayohime ('Lady Sayo of Matsura') or Matsuura Sayohime was a legendary heroine in Japanese mythology, the wife of the historical Ōtomo no Satehiko. She is referred to as Lady Otohi or Otohihime in an alternate ancient source. The core legend was that ...

who is said to be buried on the site. It is a Munakata shrine and is said to be the original shrine (roots) of

Munakata Taisha is a collection of three Shinto shrines located in Munakata, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. It is the head of the approximately 6,000 Munakata shrines all over the country. Although the name Munakata Taisha refers to all three shrines—Hetsu-gū, ...

, so it is sometimes called Moto-Munakata.

Mythology

left, Sayohime Shrine Princess Sayo at Matsu-ura

According to a version of the legend of

, she prayed with such fervour that she was transformed into stone. This petrification lore of Sayohime appears to be of later development, with its earliest attestation identified as renga poet 's ''Sodeshita shū'' (c. Ōei era, late 14th to early 15th century). This lore of Sayohime's petrification is thought to have developed from a misunderstanding: a misreading of (13th century), which ponders on the Sayohime legend and makes reference to the petrification motif taken from an old Chinese work called the ''Youminglu''. Sayohime's petrification is also mentioned in ''Nihon meijo monogatari'' (1670). Her supposed petrified remains, an example of a , is housed as the ''

shintai In Shinto, , or when the honorific prefix ''go''- is used, are physical objects worshipped at or near Shinto shrines as repositories in which spirits or ''kami'' reside.''Shintai'', Encyclopedia of Shinto ''Shintai'' used in Shrine Shinto (Jin ...

'' ("body of the kami") at the Sayohime Shrine, an undershrine of Tashima Shrine on Kabe Island. The claim regarding her petrification on this island is given in a late account of the origin of this undershrine, preserved in the 19th-century document called the (written during the Bunka era). It states that the lady did not stop at the Scarf-Waving Peak bidding farewell, but she continued to a spot from whose vantage point she beheld an island nearby. She then hopped on a fishing boat to that island, called the island (present-day Kabe Island; ) where she climbed a "bit elevated spot" and there, out of sorrow, she turned intorock. Commentators identify this elevation as the or .

Explanatory notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * *
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* (English abstract) * al
pdf
core.ac.uk * * * * * * Repr. from ''Minzoku'' 3 (2), Mar. 1927 * {{Munakata Faith Japanese mythology Beppyo shrines Myōjin Taisha Kokuhei Chūsha Shinto shrines in Saga Prefecture History of Saga Prefecture

Mythology

See also

Explanatory notes

References

Bibliography