575 GOLDEN ~ Toyokawa Inari Tokyo Betsuin (Ceremony)

 

Japanese Name: 豊川稲荷 東京別院 
Romanized Reading: Toyokawa Inari Tokyo Betsuin
English Translation: Bountiful River Inari Tokyo Branch Temple
Size: Big
Deity: Inari
Fox Count: 2 (outside) + several more inside
First Visit: 31-Jan-2019
Location: Tokyo-Minato
Address: 1 Chome-4-7 Motoakasaka, Minato City, Tokyo 107-0051
Coordinates: 35.67644,139.73292

The seventh and last golden fox place that I have found in Japan thus far. This one, like Toyokawa Inari, is actually a temple, which makes sense since it is actually a branch temple of Toyokawa Inari. But this one is unlike any of the others that I've encountered, in that it houses enough foxes to make it qualify as a golden fox place. In fact, the very background image of this blog is from this temple.

The main temple only has a pair of large bronze fox statues flanking the approach, but there are many, many more scattered all over the shrine grounds, as you will soon see.

This is also where I participated in a ceremony to ask for blessings on my life's work, The Chronicles of Ceal. These ceremonies are open to everyone for a fee, which goes towards supporting the temple. As a result, I got to enter the innermost sanctuary and a Buddhist ceremony. Sadly, recordings were not allowed, but here's an account. Below is a graphic showing the layout which I drew from memory. Also, thanks again for Asa, a local friend I met during my travels, who organized the whole experience for me. On my own, I would have been way too scared to ask.

We are admitted into the central prayer hall through a sliding door to the right. This hall is about 8m wide and 24m long, subdivided into four parts of about equal length by low fences that serve more as a symbolic separation than actual barriers. The outermost part is publicly accessible from the front of the Temple, and the second part is where we are admitted to. A pair of black foxes, one to the left and one to the right, watch over the barrier to the third part, where six bald monks and a head monk wearing a pointed cowl sit kneeling, facing the altar in the fourth and innermost part, arranged in a forward-facing 4-2-1 formation. The monk to the left back is facing a great drum, while the one to the right back has one large and one small metal bowl-shaped gong placed in front of him and is wielding a traditional bell-on-a-stick-shaped implement to ring the gongs.

The area we are entering is completely devoid of anything but a red carpet, so we hesitate for a moment, before I sit down kneeling in front of the left of the two foxes at the front of the segment, and the other supplicants follow suit, spreading around the floor and finding comfortable positions to sit in. As soon as we are all seated, the monk to the right rings the big gong, and as its clear note dissipates, the head monk begins chanting the prayer, and the other monks soon join in. Now, when I say "chant prayer", what probably comes to your mind is a slow and solemn chant, but this one is quite different. Instead, it is a fast-paced and determined chant, more akin to an invocation, which I suppose is exactly what this ceremony is about. It starts getting more intense as the monk to the left begins hitting the drum with fervent passion, producing intense and loud beats that pierce marrow and bone, reverberating all the way into the soul. And then, in an amazing display, the monks begin to flare up their Sutras, throwing the volumes of paper from left to right and back again, exposing the entirety of their texts for the briefest of moments, faster than any eye could follow.

A Sutra, that is a collection of teachings and writings unique to each particular sect and temple. Here in Japan, it traditionally takes the form of a "book" in which the pages are folded in a continuous zig-zag pattern and capped off with a cover page on either end. With sufficient skill – such as the monks clearly demonstrate – it is possible to throw all the pages from one side to the other in a continuous fluid motion, which Asa should later explain to me counts as a full reading of the entire Sutra.  

Following the fervent invocation which lasts for at least 15 minutes (though keeping track of time in this state of spiritual ecstasy is sort of difficult), the head monk takes the lead and recites the sutra in a festive and intense parlando, and once he has finished, he proceeds without pause to address the wishes and request from us the supplicants. Imploring the goddess Inari, he introduces each of us by name and residence, followed by the wishes we submitted earlier on. Interestingly, my entry seems to come as a bit of a surprise for him, for there is a slight but definitely noticeable pause before he proceeds to make the humble request on behalf of a little fox by the name of Kira Resari from Myunhen, Doitsu (ミュンヘン, ドイツ "Munich, Germany").

After all the wishes have been put forth, the monks resume their fervent chant while we the supplicants are asked by an attendant to follow him out of the main hall to the left side, only to be led along a corridor past the third part of the main hall and into the fourth part – the innermost sanctuary – located in front of the monks, where the innermost Shrines and altars are located. Here, we silently put forth our prayers again at each of the Shrines and altars, and since I've yet again run out of loose change at the Shrines outside, Asa is kind enough to provide me with a few coins that I can put forth to the gods as a sign of respect. In fact, she should do so without my asking after noticing that I had stopped producing coins from my wallet, which I suppose just goes to show what an integral part of the prayer ceremony the monetary offering is. 

Photo of Innermost Sanctuary © Toyokawa Inari Tokyo Betsuin

I don't exactly remember how many more foxes were  on the inside, but it was quite a bunch in various sizes. There were two that were at least life-sized sitting with the priests, and several more smaller ones at the little shrines in the back (and yes, those definitely looked like shrines, even though they are located in a Buddhist temple - religion is a lot less exclusive in Japan).