> > paul > thanks so much for sharing your wonderful adventures with us, adventures in kosmon, to be sure. one feels there is an even stronger "current" keeping you safe, but please take care anyway.

Thanks Poosh,

Yes, thats the current that sustains me.

> if it ever happens that you get some insight on why the yonaguni story took 8 years to hit the US, please let us know.

I used to think Robert Scoch was slowing the momentum towards recognition of the Yonaguni monument as a major shift in cultural and historical understanding, but now I agree with his caution. Theres more to find out before I can be convinced myself, now, even though, like West, Scoch, Hancock etc., its still the find I want to believe in. I know Dr Kimura and the Japanese scientific community are ahead of the rest in confirming it as being partially man-made, though I'm yet to be able to translate his reaserch which gives the clinching scientific evidence for this.
This could be why it took 8 years to hit the US.
I watched a DVD Aratake had, maybe produced by the discovery channel. Pretty interesting. Lots of useful detail was discussed.

--- In oahspe@yahoogroups.com, susan martinez wrote:

> intuitively, i believe they are! after all, oahspe has hinted that these signs will show up in kosmon.

Heres some extra info that support your belief:

While I was visiting the "peoples library", which turned out to be a folk museum, in the town where Mr Aratake has his diving shop, I noticed the book "Diving Survey Report" by Dr Kimura. This could be the same as "Discovery of Submarine pyramids off Yonaguni in Japan" (2001), mentioned earlier. It had some English pages in it, so I quickly took some notes as follows:

Near the "underwater ruins" were found underwater caves with stalactites and stalagmites in them. This process can take place only on land.
[This proves the area was once above the sea, but doesnt prove the "underwater ruins" are man-made.]
Lao-Tsi wrote of a mysterious cluster of islands in his "Book of Resshi".
He recorded the Okinawa story of Urashima Taro, who visited a castle beneath the sea on the back of a turtle god.
[This youtube gives a romaticised animation.]
On the Northern part of the island there is an oral memory that "long, long ago an island sank". On the southwest part is a traditional belief, or religion (Niraikanai), and in that tradition a story is told of an ancient continent that sank beneath the sea.

On Yonaguni island, there is a fearful legend that all the people on the island died suddenly long ago. Ikema Nae, Yonaguni Ethnic Reference Library Director (the kind woman in the "peoples library") said about the "Legend of Fire and Rain":
Then, long ago, the sky over this island became red suddenly, a bad man appeared and began to attack people. After that, the rain of fire and the tsunami rolled on every place of the island and the island sank. Moreover, when people in the island were crying out and were offering a prayer to God, it is said that they heard God's voice,“ You will be saved if you run into a hole called Donadaabu”. The legend is that people who escaped at Donadaabu were saved. This has a parallel with Atlantis and Mu continents that sink, and this legend a very strange phenomenon in Okinawa that doesn’t have a volcano.

Utsuro Bune Ancient Japanese UFO sighting
This compelling UFO sighting has a strong parallel to the Okinawan story of Urashima Taro.
According to this youtube link called Utsuro Bune Ancient Japanese UFO sighting, the legend of Utsuro Bune is about a mysterious alien woman who arrived from the bottom of the Pacific in a round craft like vessel. In Japanese writings was a description of a bowl-like ship that arrived on a beach called Hiratono Hama. Professor Kazuo Tanaka re-opened the investigation in 1997, asking “Did an encounter of the third kind occur on a Japanese beach in 1803-11? In the early 1800’s Japan suddenly saw a bounty of Utsuro Bune drawings all by different artist in different parts of the country each one telling the exact same story. Japan was completely closed to the outside world until 1857.
Here is a website with good photos.

The Iwase Bunko Depository library has a record known as the Hyouryuukishuu translated to the ‘Tales of Castaways’. The document was printed during the late Edo period which modern fans of the paranormal understand this vessel to be the ‘Edo-period UFO’. The evidence recorded tells the tales of Japanese mariners who find themselves in unfamiliar nations after becoming lost in the ocean, as well as castaway visitors washed shorewards on the seashores of Japan. To the Japanese public, who during this period had existed living in a extended time of national seclusion, these unusual stories must have appeared extremely sensational.
Together with these tales is the report of a damaged ship with a extremely mystifying form. According to the record, this large craft washed shorewards at Harashagahama. The specifications of the craft, specified as 3 meters tall by 5 meters in width, had been built from red sandalwood and metal and was equipped with openings of glass or crystal. The mystifying characters of an unfamiliar writing system were discovered etched inside the craft. Aboard the wandering vessel was a delicately decorated young lady with pale face and red eyebrows and locks. She was assessed to be amid Eighteen and Twenty years of age. Considering that she uttered an unfamiliar language, those that chanced upon her were incapable of determining from where she came. In her arms, she grasped a basic timber case that looked to be of great importance to her, as she would permit nobody to approach it.

The Submarine Ruins off Yonaguni
In 1986, what looked like archeological artifacts were found lying in the seabed off Yonaguni Island. They have since then been under investigation by the Submarine Research Group of the University of the Ryukyus headed by Professor Masaaki Kimura. Despite controversy over the ruins' authenticity, Professor Kimura maintains in his latest book, Diving Survey Report for Submarine Ruins Off Yonaguni, Japan, that there are many indications of human involvement, such as:

Traces of marks that show that human beings worked the stone. There are holes made by wedge-like tools called kusabi in many locations.
Around the outside of the loop road there is a row of neatly stacked rocks as a stone wall, each rock about twice the size of a person, in a straight line.
There are traces carved along the roadway that humans conducted some form of repairs.
The structure is continuous from under the water to land, and evidence of the use of fire is present.
Stone tools are among the artifacts found under water and on land.
Stone tablets with carving that appears to be letters or symbols, such as what we know as the plus mark "+" and a "v" shape were retrieved from under water.
From the waters nearby, stone tools have been retrieved. Two are for known purposes that we can recognize, the majority are not.
At the bottom of the sea, a relief carving of an animal figure was discovered on a huge stone.
In two locations, tools that were conceivably used by people who lived there, such as tools struck from stone have turned up.
Dr Kimura has said: "We recovered several pieces of stone tools. Typical ones are adzes. They are not polished. Their age is estimated as up to 10 thousand years old."
Inscribed into San'ninu-dai, there is a large relief carving of a bird.
Suppose that the castle-like main structure in the ruins is acknowledged as a submerged artifact, what significance would that recognition have? Human history, the history of civilization, would probably have to be rewritten to account for the existence of stone constructions of that large a scale in East Asia 10,000 years ago.
Professor Kimura speculates that the ruins might have been part of a greater Pacific civilization like that of the legendary Continent of Mu although he is skeptical about the Continent's existence itself from a geological standpoint.

Nirai-kanai and the Holy Women of Kudaka Island
Okinawan awe of the sea is thought to arouse their belief of a paradise called the “Niraikanai”. It is said that many blessings come to earth from this paradise. Festivals which welcome a god of Niraikanai are carried out in Okinawan villages in summer when it becomes June in the lunar calendar. In the Yaeyama Islands they hold a rice festival to pray for the fertility of grain. Many “Miroku Gods” appear. The Miroku God is welcomed as a bringer of happiness.
In the Haterumajima island, there is a myth of a paradise called the “Paipathiroma“ very far in the south from the island. The “Pai” means “South”, the “Pathiroma” means the “Hateruma”. In short, it becomes the “Hateruma”. This “Paipathiroma” is an island of which people had visions. In fact, there are some records that some villagers left this island for the paradise “Paipathiroma” because they couldn't endure the severe tax.

From the Japan Times July 17, 2000:
When the gods arrived by boat at the Okinawan islands during the fourth and ninth months of the Chinese calendar, they first set foot on the shores of Ishiki Beach, say residents of Kudaka Island. Far from the shore, beyond the far-reaching shallows, white waves break in what looks like a ring around the island. Beyond lies the deep blue expanse of the sea, and farther out is where the sun rises. Hana Nishime, 75, points out to the sea. "Nira-hara," she says. In other parts of Okinawa, they call it "Nirai-kanai," the faraway utopia where gods live and all things begin.
Like other "utaki," sacred places throughout Okinawa where the gods are thought to alight, no "torii," (shrine gate) is thought necessary to mark either Ishiki Beach or the nearby clearing where prayers are offered. These places still preserve beliefs and rites that were once held by the ancient Japanese. The most holy are strictly off-limits for men. The only human sounds are the low, incessant chanting of a "yuta" (spiritual counselor claiming the ability to sense the will of the spirits) offering prayers on behalf of a client.
Speak to a yuta and you soon learn to see the gods in the trees, in the kitchen stove, in ancestors and in the foam on the waves. They have no distinction between Shinto and Buddhism. And serving the gods, many of whom are demanding and jealous, is a dangerous undertaking. Yutas fall ill if they make light of what they sense. They undergo a period of intense personal suffering and are released only after they recognize their calling and declare themselves. A history of disdain and criticism by intellectuals and acts prohibited the practice of yutas, dating from 1673, 1732, 1831 and 1900. In 1938, as part of efforts by the government to encourage cultural uniformity throughout Japan, there was a reward for anybody who reported a yuta to authorities. Yutas stand in front of a grave and can tell the living whether the dead are pleased or sad. People believe that the world that can't be seen is closely intertwined with the world of the living.
But while animism remains deeply rooted in Okinawan culture many of the larger religious rites and institutions are on the verge of extinction. The roots of the organization of holy women, or "noro" reach long before they were organized into an official network of seers during the Ryukyu era (1429-1879). The noro system, a hierarchical network headed by the king's sisters, was established in 15th century to pray for safe passage of ships. Powerful enough to force the resignation of kings, noro once attended battles, guided kings and presided over festivities during peace.

In Yonaguni many festivals are still carried out 46 times per year. Life on this island is deeply and closely connected with faith. August in the lunar calendar is the beginning of the year for festivals, and next June is the end of that year. Some festivals are dedicated to a God of water, in some they wish for children's health, or they refuse to eat meat for 25 days from October in the lunar calendar. They pray to their Holy lands, and Gods of mythology, who are protected by women priestesses called Tsukasa. On the day of the festival, villagers welcome God from the Holy land with a Tsukasa who serves God, and after praying to God for a fruitful coming year, they send God off again.

Additional Discoveries and Excerpts

Various Okinawan Scripts

In addition to the characters on the rock face at San-ninu Dai, the (not very understandable) Okinawa prefecture website mentions another feature, found underwater near a cave close to the Yonaguni monument, that looks more like an image (left side of photo on right). The character is engraved on a big reef rock in the sea bed 20 meters below the surface of the sea about 1 kilometer away from the cave called the “palace of light” in the western part of the Yonaguni remains. The design looks like a dog, with legs and body and a head on the left side. When a ray of the sun shines through a hole in the “Palace of light” submarine cav, the ray is flickered by wave motion, and it drifts around there as if it were an aurora.
This image is also described in terms of a writing character due to its similarity with an ancient Okinawan writing character called Kaida (right side of photo on right). Kaida Characters are a picture writing used in Yonaguni passed on from long ago. It is said that in the past, officers used it for illiterate islanders for calculating quantity for taxation purposes, which then spilled over into daily life. Kaida Characters were used before elementary schools were established in the Meiji era.

Rosetta Stone of Okinawa (left), its other side (below, right), and other Okinawa tablets (above, right)

Indian clay tablet compared to the Sumerian style writing on the Fuente Magna bowl of Tiahuanacu

The so-called Glozel tablets, found in France have characters similar to the characters from Yonaguni and Okinawa. The three tablets (right) differ.

The Yonaguni/Okinawa characters appear to be older than 7500 BC if one looks at their development. The possible relation between the Yonaguni/Okinawa writing, the Indian clay tablet, the finds at Peru, and the Phoenician leads to the conclusion that this is evidence pointing to a common cultural origin.

The Ushiishi artefact (left) was found of six meters below the surface of the sea near remains. It looks like a figure of the cow.

There is a submarine artefact called the "slate palette", from the sea of Yonaguni, which is incised with a character (left). There is some evidence that it was shaped by being scraped away evenly and cut into at rights. A sign of the cross was made and a V-line incised on it. It is made of a grainy shale about 25 centimeters square and 2 centimeters thick, and on it there are two holes. This slate palette was examined by 11 researchers such as archaeologists and biologists. According to that report, the line and the holes can't be thought of as being traced by a living thing such as a seashell. Most of the researchers agree that it should be regarded as an artefact because the trace appears to be manmade.

Dr Kimura found traces of human evidence on August 1996 at the submarine limestone cave in Beto. A chipped stone tool (right) was found at the end of the hall at the back of the limestone cave. Professor Kato Shinpei, an archaeologist, said the wedged stone tool and the chopping tool must have been man made.

The feature on the left is named Ishibutai, (English: the Stage), and was found under water near the land based statue called Tachigami (or Tachigami-iwa), some kilometers east along the coast from Iseki point, where the monument is located. In fact, this feature is the second most famous one from Yonaguni. The Okinawa website mentions the feature at the right edge of the right part of the V-shaped backside as looking like a Moai statue, as known from Easter Island. Tachigamiiwa is a ruins point in the Pacific Ocean. It was the place of faith for people in ancient times.

This feature (left) called the Sekihi Iwa, or protection wall, is also located close to the Tachigami-iwa. It is a huge, regularly shaped, rectangular block with a length of more than 10m. On the bottom some 40-50 cm from the block runs a straight line of some 70 holes extending towards the Ishibutai. It was thought that the holes were the trace of sea urchins. But the expert of masonry Mr. Kotaro Maza concluded that "the trace of slotwedge under water" marks (describing the line of holes between Ishibutai and Sekihi Iwa) are wedge holes made in order to cut the rocks. Picture 3 shows how this could be done (he also concluded it could also be done using wooden tools). The possibility that the slotwedge construction method was also used for the construction of the monument was resolved by investigations from 1998 to 1999. The (not very understandable) Okinawan website also mentions finding this construction method at several places on the islands (Hikawa Beach at the southern coast of Yonaguni, etc).

At the end of 2002 underwater features were discoverd near the island of Penghu, in the Taiwan Straights. The first picture shows what looks like a stone wall. It lies at a depth of about 25 to 30 meters, and is said to be one of several examples, some of them stretching about 100 meters, and being about 1 meter high and 0.5 meter thick and to be constructed from round stones. The possibility of the remains being artificial is considerably higher if one realizes that Taiwan is very close to Yonaguni, whose underwater ruins are certainly artificial and lie at about the same depth, i.e. were above water at the same geological age.

Tom Moya Reef in the Kerama Islands has a point called the “Centre Circle” This is one stone at the center with some huge stones surrounding the stone. The height of stone at the center is 3 meters and is about 3 meters in diameter next to the hexagonal pole. The surrounding stones have various forms but the height of them is the same. The space between stones is arranged in order extends radially like a passage. Going down the road there is another center circle. The composition of the base stone and the stone circle on top is different indicating that this was carried here from somewhere artificially.

There is a rock which was composed in a huge plain where a castle wall rises up on the west side of Tom Moya Reef. In the center of that, a straight road of 2 meters wide continues. In some places, there are traces that the stairs were built up, and it is a different aspect completely from the seabed like the surrounding nature.

In the Ryukyu Islands, 300 Gusukus are distributed. The word Gusuku, in Okinawa, often means a castle, a Holy land or a tomb. Generally, it is built on a hill, and many of them have some stone curbs and castle walls. Gusuku began to be built about 13th century. After about the middle of the 15th century, it is said that these “Gusuku” group were completed. There is what appears to be a “Gusuku” which sinks in the seabed of Okinawa's main island.

There is a 20-30 meter long rock at the seabed of 30 meters deep at a distance of about 300 meters from Fudennsaki in the southwest of Awakunijima Island. In 1989, a local diver found 7 holes which is open to the surface of the rock. Every hole looks like a perfect circle, and it resembles the form of a well. The hole is about 3 meters in diameter, which is dug to 4 to 5 meters. In the side, some slots run vertically. On Awkunijima Island, which doesn't have much rain, they had used a stone jar to collect rain water. This indicates that the holes are of the time when it was on land.

Near the rock which has 7 holes at a distance of about 100 meters from the Fudensaki there is a rock like a castle wall which is about 20 meters high, rises from the seabed. The surface has a trace like accumulated cutting stones.

The Ryukyu Arc was a part of the continent about 2 million years ago. The Ryukyu Islands repeated violent crustal change whenever an ice age came around, which repeated the unheaval and sinking. We call the continent that once existed from Kyushu to the Chinese Continent the “Ryukyu Koriku”. The Ryukyu Koriku” began to sink under the sea some 20 thousand years ago.

The present form of the Ryukyu Islands resulted from repeated large and intense diastrophism. A submarine limestone cave was discovered on the sea bed of Hedomisaki (Hedo), Kumejima Island, at the northern edge of Okinawa. The entrance is at 10 meters deep, and the limestone cave has beautiful limestone formations on the upper and lower sides, then the cave continues in the back to no less than 40 meters deep, where it is covered with sand thought to be from the diastrophism. This would mean that during the last ice age, 10 thousand years ago, the water surface was more than 100 meters lower than at present to allow these limestone formations to develop. More amazingly, some stonewares were discovered within the limestone cave, indicating that this stoneware had exsited about 9 thousand to 7 thousand years ago. Then a submarine limestone cave was discovered near Hikawa, Yonaguni, also.

Ishigaki, Iriomote and Taketomi Jima

The three-fold whirl

The lauburu or Basque cross has four comma-shaped heads similar to the Japanese tomoe. Lau buru means "four heads", "four ends" or "four summits" in Basque.
The Basque intellectual Imanol Mujica said the heads signify spirit, life, consciousness, and form. It was found in old stelas. Around the end of the 16th century, the round swastika appears abundantly as a Basque decorative element, in wooden chests or tombs, perhaps as another form of the cross. Many Basque homes and shops display the symbol over the doorway as a sort of talisman.
Some say that what produces the distinctive round heads is the wake created by the rotation of the cross, representing the elements and universe of energy.

The Gankyil is a symbol and ritual tool in Tibetan Buddhism. It is symbolic of primordial energy, the energetic signature of the trikaya, and represents the central unity and indivisibility of all the doctrinal trinities of Dzogchen. The gankyil is the inner wheel of the Dharmacakra of the Vajrayana Ashtamangala path of Buddhism.
The energetic potency (wisdom or shakti) of the Snow Lion is expressed in the attribute of the gankyil that the Snow Lion keeps in eternal play.
The Snow Lion is a celestial animal of Tibet. It resides in the East and represents unconditional cheerfulness, a mind free of doubt, clear and precise. It has a beauty and dignity resulting from a body and mind that are synchronized. The Snow Lion has a youthful, vibrant energy of goodness and a natural sense of delight. It is one of the Four Dignities.
Gankyil (Sanskrit: ananda-chakra, pronounced "ganshee"), is formed from the words dga' ("joy, bliss") and 'khyil ("swirling, circle, coil, a place where water flows"). Thus, it may be rendered into English as "bliss-whirling" or "wheel of joy". The Gankyil represents the interdependence of all the groups of three in the Dzogchen teaching. Dzogchen, Supercompleteness, the highest path to enlightenment, is a central teaching of the Nyingma school. The Madhyamaka teachings on emptiness are fundamental to Dzogchen practices.

Bhagavan Kalacakra

The Gankyil is symbolic of the doctrine of:
Trikaya: Nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya and dharmakaya
The interdependence of the Three Vajras: body, voice and mind.
The Triple Gem: The Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. These are called the Mirror of the Dharma and help attain the true "mind like a mirror".
The triunic continuua of 'sound, light and rays' [heart, 'mind'-wheel; throat, 'voice'-wheel; head, 'body'-wheel.]
Energetic emergence: infinite and formless, thoughtform of "the eye of the mind", or the transpersonal imaginal manifestation, manifestation of the energy of the individual, as apparently an 'external' world.

The three-fold symbol mentioned by Dr Kimura might also symbolise the previously mentioned kami [Amenominakanushi, Takamimusubi and Kamimusubi] of the three-fold whirl, or Amatsu uzu-uzushi yatsuagi no ameno mi-oya no o-kami (also called "Daigenrai", the Great Original Spirit). These are three in one, like the triangle. They are known as "jisshin" (real Kami) since they are the true reality. They are not personifications.

Oahspe tells us science can discover the chemistry of life, but life is unfathomable. Shinto tells us you have been manifested in this world as one spirit, the spiritual light of which dwells in the core of our "spirit-soul".
Musubi means to unite or to bind together. In the "Chronicles of Japan" (Nihonshoki) the meaning of each written character of this word is "generate-spirit", and in the "Kojki" the meaning is "generate-nestle-sun". Two kami of the three-fold whirl, Takamimusubi no kami and Kamimusubi no kami have names ending with "musubi". This indicates the deep spiritual meaning of the word - transformation, sudden birth, as in "koke musa", literally "moss-grow", which describes the sudden emergence of moss on rock surface, something maybe akin to the appearance of life in semu.
Hi (as "bi" in musubi) means "fire" and "spirit", the source of life. [A phonetic rule changes "hi" to "bi"]
Therefore musubi signifies the proliferation of life and spirit.
Musubi (or unification) of man and woman also entails the procreation of life and "spirit-soul" (rei-kon), and so children are called musuko (boy) and musume (girl). Musubi can also apply to an individual "spirit-soul" as being the work a person does to generate, transform and develop Naohinomitama (the innermost pure spirit) for growth and strength of spirit.
So the two kami of musuhi [musubi] of the three-fold whirl combine to generate the essential core that is "Mi", the source and essence of life.
Rei-kon (spirit-soul) has eight different senses (meanings).

1) Mi, the most sacred name.
2) Hi/Bi, the character means "fire", "sun", "spirit" etc., something essential for sustaining and energising life. Musu-bi (hi=bi) means creation and development (seisei kaiku, birth and growth, transformation and development) of life.
3) Chi/Ki/Ke is the spirit-soul of the nature kami, which is highly sacred and equal to "mi" and "hi", as can be seen in the words Kukunchi no kami (tree kami), and kagutsuchi no kami (fire kami).
[Qigong involves the circulation of qi (chi) energy. In Japan, the word qi is written ki, and is related to the practice of Rei-ki.]
4) Tama is the spirit-soul dwelling in humans or animals.
5) Mono is a title for the spirit-soul of anything that is not pure spirit, as in monoke, bad vibration released from wicked thought or spirit.
6) Kami is the hidden spirit-soul, unseen and has a sacred and awe inspiring effect.
7) Mikoto is the ancient name for kami. The characters mean "life-reverence".
[Koto=words and language, worldly events. Mikoto is someone who receives words or messages about events (koto) from the divine (mi). The title mikoto (mikkyo in esoteric Buddhism) is used for kami who have the status and character of a human being and who acts in this world. The character for kami represents the lighting flash coming down from heaven (sky), so it is more correct that kami should only refer to heavenly kami (tenjin/tenshin). So it is an aberration to use the kami title for a human being acting in this world. Mikado=emperor.]
8) Nushi is a principle, major spirit-soul which has much of the sacred power of "mi", "hi" and "chi".

The highest unseen realm is Takamanohara (Takamagahara), literally "High Heaven's Plain" but often translated as the "High Plain of Heaven". It is the dwelling place of the Kami. It is believed to be connected to the Earth by the bridge Ama-no uki-hashi (the "Floating Bridge of Heaven"). In Shinto worship, the kami are invited to leave Takama-ga-hara and enter a shrine or some other purified place.
Unlike the Buddhist belief that humans can reach Nirvana, Shinto believes that humans and ancestral spirits cannot enter Takamanohara immediately. It is the abode of kami (=etheria) and requires first the attainment of kami.
The spirit of Mi, the divine virgin spirit, the stainless mirror, the source and essence of life, born of Takamimusubi no kami and Kamimusubi no kami (the creative musubi kami), pours forth into the natural world via hi/bi, chi or spirit, fire and energetic essence, and gives life to "the world after death", the "eternal land" or "land of root" (tokoyonokuni or nenokuni), "world of roots, source of life" (ni-rai-kanai), the "hidden world" (kaku riyo), and the "underworld", the "land of the dead" (Yominokuni, Hades).
The amatsu kami reside in Takamanohara, and Kunitsu kami are active closer to earth. In the Great Purification words (oharai no kotoba) its is said when the heavenly prayer words are chanted (amatsu norito), amatsu kami will listen after pushing the heavenly rock door open, cutting through [smote] the eight-fold thick cloud in heaven. Kunitsu kami will listen after clearing the mist at the high ridges and mountains.

In Shinto Amaterasu omikami is looked upon as the principle kami. She is the sun-kami and connected with the legendary founder of the imperial family.
Recent academic theory says peoples coming into Japan from the northern route took Amenominakanushi no kami to be supreme, while those from the southern route took Amaterasu omikami to be supreme. The mythologies of the Kojiki and Nihonshoki are a compromise or fusion of these two cultures. Since the sun is taken as the source of all life, and the most visible reflection of the creator kami, and the emperors family who unified ancient Japan worshipped Amaterasu omikami, she became the principle kami.

Inseparability from individuality?

"Hino-de" is sunrise
"Hino-iri" is sunset
"Hino-ke" are sparks
"Hino-te" is a tongue of fire

Naohinomitama is the "original, pure and upright spirit", the "spark of divine light" the "offspring of kami" emerging out of the "creator kami of the universe". It has great wisdom.
This spirit has the same quality as kami, but on an infinitesimally small scale.
Yamakage says " this wakemitama (or bunrei), the child spirit of kami, like the single metaphysical entity of a monad, is akin to the bud of a plant. It is the task of humans to nurture that bud so as to eventually become kami [pure, original spirit].
A song (goshinka) in Yamakage says:

"From the creating spirit of heaven and earth I have received the soul by which I am who I am".

Yamakage says "Naohinomitama is wakemitama of Daigenrai". It also says "all forms of life are a child-spirit of the original kami (daigenrai). This child-spirit, or core-spirit, is Naohinomitama. But Oahspe teaches that only the human spirit can rise to the "spirit of divine reason" (if this is what Wakemitama is).

There was a difference between the Yakamage Shinto master and a European philosopher about the "divided" (ie., the individual) soul. The European said man's spirit is part of the energy of the whole, but has its own distinct identity. The master said "if man's soul is part of the universal spirit, but has a distinct identity, the divided spirit can not have the same qualities as the original spirit, and moreover, original spirit cannot be divided. He gave a parallel of a tree and a seed. There is no sudden transformation of the seed into a tree, yet there is always a continuity between the two distinct forms. In this way a divided soul is not distinct from the original soul. Citing Hindu philosophy the European explained that Brahman or Atman does not have the same capacity for growth as attributed to them by Shinto.
The master explained, Man is not another self [aspect] of Deity. There is a continuity between the divided [individual] spirit and the original spirit.

So if the core-spirit is the same as the One original spirit, why does a child become a Man, an egg become a bird and a seed become a tree? What is this One spirit out of whose blueprint all things become what they are, yet identical and common to all?

Any answers?
Here's an old one, similar to Gnosticism, and Greek mythology.

Yamakage explains: "The first chapter of the Kojiki contains the origin of (Japanese) history, still shrouded in mythology. It mentions the coming into existence of three creator kami who created and transformed themselves to bring forth various kami, all of whom are child-spirits of these three creators. These also transformed and generated their own child-spirits. These further transformed and generated all the phenomena of the universe. From this chain of procreation it is inferred that humans, animals, plants and all natural matter are in essence offspring of the great original kami of the universe, or, everything ultimately comes into existence as a child-spirit of the original kami. The meaning of ceremony, prayer offerings and dedications of food expresses the awareness that "we owe our life and sustaining energy to the great source of nature."

Whether we get our spirit in turn from a chain of being [which is unclear], or directly from Jehovih, as Oahspe teaches, we should still also practice similar prayers and dedications to the great source of nature, Jehovih.

Daigenrai is the three-fold whirl. Its symbol is a circle called Daikanu, the seen and unseen universe of the Great Circle, or Big Circle of the Universe.
Within the circle are three spiral arms joined at the center, so they are three in one, like the triangle. Amenominakanushi no kami is One, who becomes Two, comprising three in one.
Jehovih is at once the All, represented by a circle, yet is creator represented as one of three in the triangle, which symbolises His inseparability from individuality [divisibility] and substance, as two sides of one coin.

In Kasmir Saivism, Cit (consciousness) is the One reality. Matter is not separated from consciousness, but rather identical to it. There is no gap between God and the world. The world is not an illusion (as in Advaita Vedanta), rather the perception of duality is the illusion.
Since many Nyingma teachings reduce 'voidness' to 'absence' and therefore 'nihilism', identifying absolute truth with such an absence would not account for the manifestation of Awakening, or even for the manifestation of phenomena. Therefore they explain voidness as lying in the absence of mental constructs, that is inherent in the essence of mind in which space and awareness are indivisible, and define absolute truth as consisting in the indivisibility of emptiness and appearances, or of emptiness and awareness.
According to Madhyamika all phenomena are empty of "self nature" or "essence", meaning that they have no intrinsic, independent reality apart from the causes and conditions from which they arise. Our ultimate nature is said to be pure, all-encompassing, primordial, naturally occurring timeless awareness. This "intrinsic awareness" has no form of its own and yet is capable of perceiving, experiencing, reflecting, or expressing all form. It does so without being affected by those forms in any ultimate, permanent way. The analogy given by Dzogchen masters is that one's nature is like a mirror which reflects with complete openness but is not affected by the reflections, or like a crystal ball that takes on the colour of the material on which it is placed without itself being changed. It is an "effulgence", an "all-pervading fullness" a "space that is aware". When an individual is able to maintain the dzogchen state continually, he no longer experiences dukkha, or feelings of discontent, tension and anxiety in everyday life.

Duality, the cloud of illusion

The inseparability of the creator from individuality [divisibility] and substance, which I mentioned in my last message, has a parallel in Koshinto.
Oahspe speaks of the external world that can be in conflict with our internal being. Yamakage classifies this external world into four souls (shin-kon, soul-four). Heres some words that convey the meaning of Shi/Shin/Jin (Shen in Chinese).

dair-shi-rei (great-kami-spirit)
shin-rei (kami-spirit)
shin-rei-kai (kami-spirit-world)
rei-kai (spirit-world)
shin-kai (kami-world)
shin-to (kami-way)

The Koshinto philosophy of ichirei shikon (one spirit four souls) has more in common with the pagan concept of the four elements than Oahspe, but has this useful clarification. Naohinomitama is the child-spirit "coming out of daigenrai" (the great original spirit).
Our body-mind, or what in Yamakage would be the four souls:

gross (earth)
magical (air)
happy (fire)
harmony (water)

surrounds the spark of Jehovih within us, our soul (naohinomitama), and "are what daigenrai has created, made grown, transformed and developed" (seisei kaiku, the creation process). Our body-mind (external world-world of impressions) can become "disturbed and unfocused", in conflict with naohinomitama ["also called 'true self' (shinga)"], the "kami inside", and we "cannot proceed upward on the path of renovating, maintaining, generating (or creating) and cultivating - the path that leads to self-realisation as kami". There becomes a duality, a separation of pure and impure (true-self and ego-self) and we can't hear the voice of this true self, which becomes shrouded by a cloud of illusion.
These can be united ("become one body like the front and back of a coin" - "kami and human spiritually become One") through silent listening and spiritual practices, lending to the saying "the ancestors and I are one", as "one body".

Harking back to the tree and seed analogy and the individual/unity paradox, which I mentioned in my last message, I quote:

"I am a child-spirit (wakemitama) coming out of the same one spirit (ichirei) changing and moving toward kami.
I am one scene of an endless, continuous life history in the eternal universe.
My ancestors who bore me are also the children of kami, and they also received naohinomitama from daigenrai as I did.
I have inherited my body, culture, and knowledge.
Seisei kaiku is representd within 'I'.
I live in the flow of this eternity.
Everything is 'I' and the source of life is One.
All the manifest universe is interconnected; part of the web of life.
Any phenomena manifested in me is meaningful and nurtures me, and moves me towards kami, and so every manifestation in the cosmos is a manifestation of me".

Japanese Creation Legends

In Japanese mythology, Susano’o is the brother of Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun, and of Tsukuyomi, the god of the moon. The oldest sources for Susano’o myths are the ca. 680 CE Kojiki and ca. 720 CE Nihon Shoki. They tell of a long-standing rivalry between Susano’o and his sister. When he was to leave Heaven by orders of Izanagi, he went to bid his sister goodbye. Amaterasu was suspicious, but when Susano’o proposed a challenge to prove his sincerity, she accepted. Each of them took an object of the other's and from it birthed gods and goddesses. Amaterasu birthed three women from Susano’o's sword while he birthed five men from her necklace. Claiming the gods were hers because they were born of her necklace, and the goddesses were his, he decided that he has won the challenge, as his item produced women. The two were content for a time, but Susano’o, the Storm God, became restless and went on a rampage destroying his sister's rice fields, hurled a flayed pony at her loom, and killed one of her attendants in a fit of rage. Amaterasu, who was in fury and grief, hid inside the Ama-no-Iwato ("heavenly rock cave"), thus effectively hiding the sun for a long period of time.

Misogi harae and the mystery of musubi

Izanagi no kami and Izanami no kami, the two earthly creators, in contrast to the heavenly creators, are children given birth by kami of heaven, and who have become parents on earth. They are the first descendants from heaven. Yamakage Shinto says Amaterasu omikami is a manifestation of Amenominakanushi no kami. Another version tells of Izanagi no Mikoto doing misogi (purification), and throwing away garments, each representing a return to his true self. Then through musubi he bore Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo.

The story of "misogi harae" is found in the Kojiki.
Izanagi no mikoto grieved for the passing of his wife Izanami so much that he visited Hades (yomi no kuni). She was so badly transformed that he cried out in disgust. She chased him, but he escaped and then practiced misogi at Odo of Tachibana at Himuka in Tsukushi (an unknown ancient place at the mouth of a river and ocean), in order to cleanse himself from the impurities of Hades. Then many kami were born.
Misogi is "the ritual at the heart of Shinto ceremony", carried out primarily in summer, but also at the mid autumn harvest festival and mid-winter (solstice) prayer festival. It took place when Saigu (or Itsuki no miya) is opened at Ise, or when Saiin is opened at the Kamo Shrine.
Saigu is the pure shrine at Ise.
Izanagi and Izanami shared intercourse of Mito (mito no maguwai is coition) which resulted in the birth of many kami offspring. [The characters mean mi(zu)=water and to=door, mito is therefore the merging of two waters]. Since many kami were born after the misogi practiced by Izanagi no mikoto, this suggests intercourse or rebirth. The story contains a hidden meaning. When Izanagi no mikoto arrived at the place for misigi he threw away various things he carried and wore. Each time, a kami was born.

1) He nailed his walking stick to the ground, symbolising the completion of a long journey (the stick symbolises the journey of life, and nailing it symbolises the journey's conclusion).
2) He removed his sash and Michi no naga chiha no kami was born. The removal of his sash symbolises the sense of contented awareness. Michi=road, naga=long
3) He removed his mo (pants cover) and Tokiokashi no kami was born (the kami who puts down time). The removal of his mo symbolises the lifting of the world of illusion. (Mo=relativity of time).
4) He removed his upper cloth and Wazurainoushi no kami was born. The removal of his upper cloth symbolises the release of the center of worries.
5) He removed his fundoshi (loin cloth) and Michimata no kami (the kami of the forked road) was born. The removal of his fundoshi symbolises the freedom from doubt and vacillation when encountering life's forked roads. The groin represents the forked road.
6) He removed his crown and Akiguinoushi no kami (the kami who is tired of biting) was born. With the removal of his crown he declared he is tired of biting into power, status and priveleges.
7) He removed his armbands and Okizakaru no kami (the kami who is deeply attached and steps aside) was born. The removal of his armbands symbolises his disowning of those who clung, his vassels and hangers-on. With this he graduated from illusion which is the deeper meaning of misogi.
8) He rinsed his body with water and Yasomagatsuhi no kami (the kami who causes disasters) was born. He is an unclean kami; His emergence symbolises the explusion of dirt.
9) He removed his ... and Kannaabi no kami (the kami for divine correction) was born.
10) When he cleansed his lower body at the bottom, middle and surface of the water .... were born. These kami and princes are related to the power of cleansing.

In this way Izanagi no mikoto returned to his true self. Afterwards he underwent a spiritual cleansing, and through the mystery of musubi he bore three noble children.

1) Amaterasu omikami the sun
2) Tsukuyomi no mikoto, the moon
3) Susanoo no mikoto, the wind

The characters of the text literally mean "three pillars (columns) of noble children. The Japanses word for "pillar" is sometimes a synonym for kami.
Since many kami were born after the misogi practiced by Izanagi no mikoto, this suggests intercourse or rebirth. According to the dictionary musu means to tie, to knot, to produce, form, make.
Musubi means to "unite", or "bind together". Musubi signifies the proliferation of life and spirit. Musubi of man and woman also entails the procreation of life and "spirit-soul" (rei-kon). In this case musubi means "generative". It is related to two of the creator "musubi" kami of the three-fold whirl.

1) Amaterasu omikami represents the spiritual creativity and means, the realisation of justice and fairness of heart, and opening of oneself to becoming spiritually clean, bright, right and honest.
2) Tsukuyomi no mikoto represents the mental and psychological creativity.
3) Susanoo no mikoto represents the physical act of creation (a healthy body which can act woth courage and composure).

In short body, mind and spirit; or wind/earth, moon sun.

Yatano kagami is the mirror and one of the three imperial regalia. It symbolises the sun, and also the relection of the image of kami. It therefore represents Amaterasu omikami.

Kagami, Susanoo no mikoto and Confucianism

Confucianism (Rújia) was developed from the teachings of Confucius (Kong Fuzi, or K'ung-fu-tzu, lit. "Master Kong", 551–479 BC). Cultures influenced by Confucianism include China, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and Singapore. Japan was influenced by Confucianism in a different way. Confucianism stresses the importance of education for moral development of the individual so that the state can be governed by moral virtue rather than by the use of coercive laws.

Lead the people with administrative injunctions and put them in their place with penal law, and they will avoid punishments but will be without a sense of shame. Lead them with excellence and put them in their place through roles and ritual practices, and in addition to developing a sense of shame, they will order themselves harmoniously.

Analects II, 3

Confucius believed that social disorder often stemmed from failure to perceive, understand, and deal with reality. Xun Zi chapter (22) "On the Rectification of Names" claims the ancient sage-kings chose names (míng) that directly corresponded with actualities (shí), but later generations confused terminology, coined new nomenclature, and thus could no longer distinguish right from wrong.
The works of Confucius were translated into European languages through Jesuit scholars stationed in China. Father Prospero Intorcetta published the life and works of Confucius into Latin in 1687. Deists and other philosophical groups of the Enlightenment were interested in the integration of the system of morality of Confucius into Western civilization.
Confucianism is reluctant to employ laws. In a society where relationships are considered more important than laws, if no other power forces government officers to take the common interest into consideration, corruption and nepotism may arise. In Confucian political philosophy, law is necessary, but statesmen should lay more importance on morals.
Confucianism is criticized for not providing a means to control and reduce corruption and nepotism itself. Another problem is that if children are always to listen and to respect parents and grandparents wishes, then it would be hard for them to progress in what they want to think and believe in. As progress is only to be in a cycle of parents listening to grandparents, children listening to parents, then it can't change.
If children are always to obey, respect and listen to their parents then it would not be up to the children to decide what they wish to do with their lives in the future but their parents. This is a loss of freedom for the young individual. In China, women were treated as second class citizens (for around 1500 years till the end of Qing), because Confucius thought that all wives should listen to their husbands and in doing so keep social harmony. Since the communists took the country in 1949, women have had the rights to attend school, get a job and have as much rights as a man.

Amami Oshima and Yakushima

The Jomon Sugi cedar is at least 2,000 years old

Takachiho and the Sun Goddess cave

Ame-no-Iwato Cave, Takachiho

Aso Jinja

I learned of the fire ritual that happens in March at Aso Jinja (Aso shrine) by watching the film at the Aso volcanic museum, just near this crater. There was another ritual shown involving green stalks of rice thrown onto the portable shrines as they paraded through the village streets. But I had no knowledge of the most sacred day of the year.
The English speaking woman at the local information center, who had told me she was a participant in the local indigenous community, gave sufficient directions to find my way to Aso Jinja (at Ichinomiya), but apparently with-held what was about to unfold. I arrived in the rain in the afternoon, and hearing drums, walked faster.
There were women in white robes, and a large crowd at the shrine. They were throwing rice stalks, just like in the film, onto the portable shrines, but things were winding down and the portable shrines were being put back into the Jinja. I asked two Japanese ladies what was going on. Fortunately they were tourists and could speak English. They told me they had been there all day, and the event had begun with a Shinto ceremony followed by the parading of the shrines throughout the town, which now had come to an end. It was indeed the most sacred day of the year (28/7/09), and I was about to experience my first Shinto ceremony.
The shrine bearers and devotees crowed into the front of the shrine. I was in the middle listening to the singing. It was in vowel sounds, rather than words, perfectly in tune, no harmony. I heard only male voices, there were few females. This lasted 15-30 minutes. Then everyone left except the priests, musicians, and me, except for a handful of onlookers. By the time the ceremony took place the courtyard was mostly empty. A priest came, returning a few idols and crest symbols on posts. These were placed at the side of the shrine. At the center was the head (painted red) of a heifer idol. It kindled memories of the golden calf scene, or the defiling of the Jerusalem temple by the Seleucids during the Maccabeean revolt. The other two idols; white faced human gods, were placed on other side. I remembered that Buddhists idolised an Ox connected to a silly legend, but this might have been different.
According to my guide book, the Aso Jinja is dedicated to the 12 gods of the mountain. The locals worship Taka-dake, the volcano god, as the supreme god of Kyushu. I assume this was the heifer idol.
There was a beautiful brief burst of wooden flute and drum out of the midst of the silence, something I later learned is common to other more orthodox Shinto practices. Then the chief priest dressed in crimson attire and a black Shinto hat rose and chanted from a scroll in a pious tone reminiscent of any orthodox Christian priest. The difference was that this reading was brief, and he sat down and a less senior priest dressed in a different colour completed the formalities. There was another burst of music and it was over. I walked out of the deserted shrine thru the rare ‘mon’ (gate) into the adjacent lane. For a vegan it was unpleasant stroll through the various roasted meat stalls, something I was accustomed to seeing at temples of idols around the world. I thought how tight knit and bound this community was to their deep-seated form of unity, giving its folk a time of fervent communion suited to their rural lifestyle based spiritual needs, and a break from the mundane world; and how established their (perhaps superstitious) concept of order was, in serving to keep their tribe together as an entity, in contrast to the alternative possibility of being scattered individuals who cannot unite for a common purpose.
I now know this festival is called the Onda Matsuri (rice field work pantomime) and it occurs on July 28 and 29. On the day of the festival, a procession of nearly one hundred attendants, beginning with a person wearing a mask of the kami, Sarutahiko, followed by saotome (rice planting women), fourteen unari (young women) carrying rice chests, lion dancers (shishi), dengaku, field laborers, oxen, and four sacred palanquins (shin'yo), proceeds to the first temporary shrine and ceremonially present offerings of food and norito. Then a ritual rice planting occurs and the procession moves to the second temporary shrine. In the evening, the procession returns to the main shrine where all of the shrines are ceremonially visited and another ritualized rice-planting is held in the shrine grounds.
Many matsuri (festivals) throughout Japan originated from Shinto rites, which included thanksgiving prayers often of food, valuables and purification rituals. On such occasions rites may be held for water purification (misogi) and confinement in shrines for devotional purposes, the procession of a sacred palanquin or of boats, a ceremonial feast, a lion dance (shishi mai), and a rice-planting festival (o-taue matsuri).

Sarutahiko is the god of crossroads, pathways, and surmounting obstacles. He stands seven fathoms tall, with a massive beard and a jeweled spear. Holy light shines from his eyes, mouth, and posterior. Sarutahiko is the chief of the earthly kami and the husband of Ama-no-Uzume no Mikoto, the goddess of mirth, dancing, wifery, and health. He guards the bridge that links the heavens and the earth. When Ninigi no Mikoto, the August Grandson of Amaterasu Ohmikami, was preparing to descend to the earth and take possession of it, his scouts found that one earthly god remained rebellious and would not submit to Ninigi's rule. This was Sarutahiko, and as he guarded the Bridge of Heaven, Ninigi could not descend until the giant god swore fealty to him.
The gods of heaven called council and asked for a volunteer to subdue Sarutahiko. None of the male deities volunteered, so Ama-no-Uzume stated that she would go. Being the bold and independent sort, she removed her arms from the sleeves of her kimono and let the robe drop to her waist, leaving her breasts exposed [a similar tactic as for Amaterasu]. She descended to earth and found Sarutahiko walking along a path. He was surprised to see a half-naked goddess walking towards him, arms akimbo, with a very stern look on her face.
Having gotten his attention, Ama-no-Uzume insisted that he swear fealty to Ninigi and to Amaterasu, his grandmother. So impressed was Sarutahiko by the goddess' boldness that he immediately obeyed the command and at the same time asked her to be his wife. The two lived out their days and were entombed at the site of what is now Tsubaki Dai Jinja in Mie Prefecture, Japan. The shrine has been in continual operation for more than 2000 years, and was given its current name by Emperor Nintoku, the son of Ojin.

Kyshu, Izumo, Shikoku and Kyoto on a 5 day Rail Pass

In ‘Glimpses of Japan’ (1894) by Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) we learn that the sacred name of Japan, Shinkoku, or ‘country of the gods’ was the land of Izumo.
“Hither, from the blue plain of High Heaven first came to dwell a while the earth makers Izanagi and Izanami, the parents of gods and men”. Somewhere of the border of this land Izanami was buried. Out of this land and into the realm of the dead Izanagi followed after her (as written in the Kojiki, the most ancient book extant, in the archaic tongue of Japan, and the most sacred scripture of Shinto).
[In an Oahspean interpretation this would mean that Izumo is an unseen realm of the lower heavens, below which is the earth itself, where earthbound spirits dwell]. Hearn adds, “the myth is more weird than the descent of Ishtar.”
A similar myth is of the 'Torrent mist princess', daughter of the world of shadows, she who loved the master of the great land (O-Kuninushi) and followed him out of the place of ghosts to be his wife.
“As Izumo is the province of the gods and place of the childhood of the race who worship Izanagi and Izanami, so is ‘Kitzuki of Izumo’ the city of the gods, with its immemorial temple, the earliest home of the ancient Shinto faith”.
Hearn narrates romantically, how he was the first foreigner to meet with Senke Takanori, the kokuzo (spiritual governor) of Kitzuki, to whom "none may speak save on bended knee”. The Takanori family trace back their descent to the goddess of the sun. He was the 81st pontiff of Kitzuki, with his lineage traced back 65 generations of kokuzo, and further, 16 generations of earthly deities to Ama-terasu, and her brother Susanoo-no-mikato.
The Tenshi-Sama (Son of Heaven) stands as mediator “between his people and the sun”. Hearn says worshipful reverence paid to Mikado (emperor) was paid to a dream, a name rather than to a person or reality, for the Tenshi-Sama was ever invisible as a deity “divinely retired”, and in popular belief no man could look upon his face and live. Invisibility and mystery enhanced the divine legend of Mikado. But kukuzo received almost equal devotion. From remote times there have been two branches of the same family that claim ancestral right to the office of kukuzo, the rival houses of Senke and Kitajima. The government favoured the former, but appointed Kitajima to be vice-kukuzo (a temporal title), the emperor’s deputy to Kitzuki, who is appointed to worship the deity in the emperors stead.
Kuni no miyatsuko (Kokuzo) were officials in ancient Japan at the time of the Yamato court. They were in charge of provinces. Kuni no miyatsuko had vast powers and were local lords appointed by the Yamato court. Kuni no miyatsuko as rulers were abolished during the Taika reforms, and provinces were reorganized under the ritsuryo system. Kuni no miyatsuko were appointed gunshi, whereas provinces became ruled by kokushi. The post remained after the Taika reforms, but the Kuni no miyatsuko were now in charge of spiritual and religious affairs.
Senke Takanori claimed that the ‘Oha-yashiro’ (Izumo oyashiro) was first built by the order of the goddess of the sun, when deities alone existed. It was rebuilt in the time of Emperor Sui-nin, and again in the time of Empress Sai-mei, which is the same building existing today. The Oyashiro was rebuilt 28 times every 61 years. In the 4th year of Tai-ei-sama, Amako Tsune Hisa committed charge to Buddhists, to the outrage of tradition. Things were restored by Moro Mototsugo.

In the name O-Kuninushi-no-okami, kuni means country, nation, and Ka-nushi is a Shinto priest. The English handout I received at the shrine tells me O-Kuninushi-no-okami appears to be an individual, unrelated god to Amaterasu. But he is brought within the ideology by having been given the status of “creator of all things under the heavens”, saviour and protector of the natural way of all things”, cultivator of land, developer of the nation, bringer of agriculture and farming, and medicine. Most significantly he is “En-musubi”, the creator and arranger of relationships, and god of all-encompassing boundless love, mercy and brotherhood.
The Izumo region is known as the ‘realm of the gods’ and the land of mythology. After OKuninushi created the land he presented it to Amaterasu-omikami, the parent goddess of the Japanese people, and went into seclusion.
OKuninushi, master-of-the-great-land, is one of the most ancient divinities of Japan, but is confounded with Daikoku, god of wealth (who is depicted seated on bales of rice, holding a red sun against his breast, and a mallet). His son Koto-shiro-nushi-no-kami is confounded with Ebishu, who is patron of labour (depicted holding a tai-fish).
Hearn mentions 800 myriad of kami in the plain of High Heaven. Of these, 3132 dwell in the provinces of land, enshrined in 2861 shrines. The tenth month was called “no god month”, because the deities leave to assemble at Kitzuki in Izumo. Hearn recalls that serpents come to the land from the sea and coil on the sambo (table of the gods) to announce their coming. The dragon king sends messengers to the shrines of Izanagi and Izanami, the parents of gods and men.
A little serpent, called the august dragon serpent, is sent by the dragon king. The sea darkens and rises and roars before the coming of Ryu-ja-sama, messenger of Ryugu-jo (palace of dragons). The messenger is also called Hakaju, a white serpent with the face of a man, with white brows and a crown, also a servant of Benten, goddess of love and beauty. This legend has been identified with Hindu beings, having been introduced by Buddhism. It is also a serpent-like fish caught by fishermen.
Hearn saw a carved relief of “winged dragons rising from a storm-whirl of waters, or descending into it”. The whirls of the eddying water, and crests of the billowing, stood out in hoops and curlings of grey wood.
Ryujin (dragon god), also known as Owatatsumi, was the tutelary deity of the sea in Japanese mythology. This Japanese dragon symbolized the power of the ocean, had a large mouth, and was able to transform into a human shape. Ryujin lived in Ryugu-jo, his palace under the sea built out of red and white coral, from where he controlled the tides with magical tide jewels. Ryujin was the father of the beautiful goddess Otohime who married the hunter prince Hoori. The first Emperor of Japan, Emperor Jimmu, is said to have been a grandson of Otohime and Hoori's. Thus, Ryujin is an ancestor of the Japanese imperial dynasty. According to legend, the Empress Jingu was able to carry out her attack into Korea with the help of Ryujin's tide jewels. An annual festival at the Yasaka Shrine called Gion Matsuri celebrates this legend. Ryujin shinko (dragon god faith) is a form of Shinto religious belief that worships dragons as water kami. It is connected with agricultural rituals, rain prayers, and the success of fishermen. In legend, Urashima Taro visited Ryugu-jo for seven days.

Tokushima, 88 Sacred Temples, Iya Valley, Koya-san and Nara
Early next morning I stopped in Matsue and saw where Hearn had lived. It was by the moat of the castle. Then passed down through the Western Honshu interior to Okayama and crossed the extensive bridge spanning to Shikoku just before dark, managing to glimpse some of the wonderful islands of the inland sea. I reached Tokushima late at night. The Awa Odori Kaikan, near the chair lift, was interesting to see the next morning, and I stayed to participate in the cute Awaodori dance performance.
In the afternoon I moved on to Bandou, where the 88 Sacred Temples pilgrimage begins, and began walking through the towns, villages, farms, bamboo groves and forests, following the ever elusive markers (I had no map). I managed to visit the first 5 temples. Having had enough of the endless Buddha idols and Buddhist temples after two days on the pilgrimage trail I left for the more wild and beautiful Iya Valley. This was far more spectacular, with clear blue water and beautiful forest appearing through the gorge as the train wound its way through. I got out at Oboke, crossed the bridge and found a way to get down into the gorge and go for a swim in the pure rushing water in time to get another train to Kotohira and hike up the stone steps, flanked by stalls all the way to the top of Kompirasan and witness the view.

Still moving on, I was again in Western Honshu, passing through Kobe, Osaka and Wakayama to sleep at Hashimoto, at the foothills of the Koyasan mountains. Next morning I took the cable car up to the Koya-san monastic complex, the headquarters of the Shingon school of Esoteric Buddhism.
Koya-san was thick with tourists, but there was nevertheless a quality to be discovered. There was tranquillity among the stately cedars in the Oku-no-in cemetery. This was the only place I could sit quietly and still and peacefully meditate. The many historical temples conveyed the legend of Kukai. But it wore off and I moved on the Osaka and Nara in two days.

Kukai, also known posthumously as Kobo-Daishi, 774–835, was a Japanese monk, scholar, poet, and artist, founder of the Shingon or "True Word" school of Buddhism. Kukai was a calligrapher, engineer, and is said to have invented kana, the syllabary in which, in combination with Chinese characters (kanji) the Japanese language is written (although this claim has not been proven). His religious writings, some fifty works, expound the esoteric Shingon doctrine. He was born in Shikoku during a period of political turmoil with Emperor Kammu seeking to consolidate his power and to extend his realm, while moving the capital of Japan from Nara ultimately to Heian (modern-day Kyoto).
Biographies of Kukai suggest that he became disillusioned with his Confucian studies, but developed a strong interest in Buddhist studies instead. Around the age of 22, Kukai was introduced to Buddhist practice involving chanting the mantra of the Bodhisattva Akasagarbha (Kokuzo). During this period Kukai frequently sought out isolated mountain regions where he chanted the Akasagarbha mantra relentlessly. At age 24 he published his first major literary work, Sango Shiiki, in which he quotes from an extensive list of sources, including the classics of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. The Nara temples, with their extensive libraries, possessed these texts.
During this period in Japanese history, the central government closely regulated Buddhism. Ascetics and independent monks, like Kukai, were frequently banned and lived outside the law, but still wandered the countryside or from temple to temple. During this period Kukai had a dream, in which a man appeared and told him that the Mahavairocana Sutra is the scripture which contained the doctrine Kukai was seeking. Though Kukai managed to obtain a copy he found the translated portion of the sutra was very cryptic. Because Kukai could find no one who could elucidate the text for him, he went to China to study the text there. Kukai took part in a government-sponsored expedition to China. Scholars are unsure why Kukai was selected to take part in an official mission to China, given his background as a private, not state-sponsored, monk.
The expedition included four ships, with Kukai on the first ship, while another famous monk, Saicho was on the second ship. During a storm, the third ship turned back, while the fourth ship was lost at sea. Kukai's ship arrived weeks later in the province of Fujian and its passengers were denied entry to the port while the ship was impounded. Kukai, being fluent in Chinese, wrote a letter to the governor of the province explaining their situation. The governor allowed the ship to dock, and the party was asked to proceed to the capital of Chang'an (present day Xi'an), the seat of power of the Tang Dynasty.
After further delays, the Tang court granted Kukai a place in the Ximingsi temple where his study of Chinese Buddhism began in earnest as well as studies of Sanskrit with the Gandharan pandit Prajña. Kukai met Master Hui-kuo the man who would initiate him into the esoteric Buddhism tradition at Changan's Qinglong Monastery. Huiguo came from a lineage of Buddhist masters, famed for translating Sanskrit texts into Chinese, including the Mahavairocana Sutra. In a few months he was to receive the final initiation, and become a master of the esoteric lineage. Kukai arrived back in Japan with a large number of esoteric texts.
Kukai's return from China was eclipsed by Saicho, the founder of the Tendai school. Saicho had already had esoteric rites officially recognised by the court as an integral part of Tendai, and had already performed the abhisheka, or initiatory ritual, for the court by the time Kukai returned to Japan. With Emperor Kammu's death, Saicho's fortunes began to wane. Saicho requested that Kukai give him the introductory initiation, which Kukai agreed to do. He also granted a second-level initiation upon Saicho, but refused to bestow the final initiation (which would have qualified Saicho as a master of esoteric Buddhism) because Saicho had not completed the required studies, leading to a falling out between the two that was not resolved.
In 810 Kukai emerged as a public figure when he was appointed administrative head of Todai-ji, the central temple in Nara. With the public initiation ceremonies for Saicho and others at Takaosan in 812, Kukai became the acknowledged master of esoteric Buddhism in Japan. He set about organizing his disciples into an order - making them responsible for administration, maintenance and construction at the temple, as well as for monastic discipline.
In 816, Emperor Saga accepted Kukai's request to establish a mountain retreat at Mount Koya as a retreat from worldly affairs. The ground was consecrated with rituals lasting seven days, but he could not stay as he had received an imperial order to act as advisor to the secretary of state, and he therefore entrusted the project to a senior disciple. Kukai's vision was that Mt. Koya was to become a representation of the two mandalas that form the basis of Shingon Buddhism: the central plateau as the Womb Realm mandala, with the peaks surrounding the area as petals of a lotus; and located in the centre of this would be the Diamond Realm mandala in the form of a temple which he named Kongobu-ji (Diamond Peak Temple). At the center of the temple complex sits an enormous statue of Mahavairocana Buddha who is the personification of Ultimate Reality.
When Emperor Kammu had moved the capital in 784, he had not permitted the powerful Buddhists from the temples of Nara to follow him. He did commission two new temples: To-ji (Eastern Temple) and Sai-ji (Western Temple) which flanked the road at southern entrance to the city, protecting the capital from evil influences.

The To-ji Temple is situated near Kyto railway station. Most of its present buildings date back to the 17th cent.

Emperor Saga asked Kukai, experienced in public works projects, to take over To-ji and finish the building project. Saga gave Kukai free rein, enabling him to make To-ji the first Esoteric Buddhist centre in Kyoto. An imperial decree gave Kukai exclusive use of To-ji for the Shingon School, which set a new precedent in an environment where previously temples had been open to all forms of Buddhism. Kukai open his School of Arts and Sciences, open to all regardless of social rank. This was in contrast to the only other school in the capital which was only open to members of the aristocracy. The school taught Taoism and Confucianism, in addition to Buddhism, and provided free meals to the pupils. The latter was essential because the poor could not afford to live and attend the school without it. The school closed ten years after Kukai's death, when it was sold in order to purchase some rice fields for supporting monastic affairs.

Shingon
Shingon Buddhism is the other extant major branch of Vajrayana Buddhism along with Tibetan Buddhism. It is often called "Japanese Esoteric Buddhism". The word shingon is the Japanese reading of the kanji for the Chinese word zhenyán, literally meaning "true words", which in turn is the Chinese translation of the Sanskrit word mantra.
The Shingon includes practices known in Japan as Mikkyo, which are similar in concept to those in Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. The lineage for Shingon Buddhism differs from that of Tibetan Vajrayana, having emerged from India and Central Asia (via China) and is based on earlier versions of the Indian texts than the Tibetan lineage. Shingon shares material with Tibetan Buddhism–-such as the esoteric sutras (called Tantras in Tibetan Buddhism) and mandalas – but the actual practices are not related. The school mostly died out or was merged into other schools in China towards the end of the Tang Dynasty but flourished in Japan. Shingon is one of the few remaining branches of Buddhism that continues to use the siddham script of the Sanskrit language.
Shingon arose in Japan's Heian period (794-1185) when Kukai went to China in 804 and studied tantric practices in Xian and returned with many texts and art works. In time, he developed his own synthesis of esoteric practice and doctrine, centered on the universal Buddha Vairocana (Mahavairocana Tathagata).
Shingon enjoyed immense popularity during the Heian Period, and contributed to art and literature, and influenced other communities, such as the Tendai sect on Mt. Hiei. Its emphasis on ritual found support in the Kyoto nobility, particularly the Fujiwara clan. This favor allotted Shingon several politically powerful temples in the capital, where rituals for the imperial family and nation were regularly performed. Many of these temples such as Toji and Daigoji in the South of Kyoto and Jingoji and Ninnaji in the Northwest became ritual centers establishing their own particular ritual lineages.
Like the Tendai School that branched into the Jodo, Zen and Nichiren Schools in the Kamakura period, Shingon divided into two branches: Kogi Shingon (Old) and Shingi Shingon (New). This schism arose out of a political dispute.
The teachings of Shingon are based on esoteric Vajrayana texts, the Mahavairocana Sutra and the Vajrasekhara Sutra (Diamond Crown Sutra). These two mystical teachings are shown in the main two mandalas of Shingon, namely, the Womb Realm (Taizokai) mandala and the Diamond Realm (Kongo Kai) mandala. Vajrayana Buddhism is concerned with the ritual and meditative practices leading to enlightenment. According to Shingon, enlightenment is not a distant, foreign reality that can take aeons to approach but a real possibility within this very life, based on the spiritual potential of every living being, known generally as Buddha-nature. If cultivated, this luminous nature manifests as innate wisdom. With the help of a genuine teacher and through properly training the body, speech, and mind, we can reclaim and liberate this enlightened capacity for the benefit of ourselves and others.
Kukai also systematized and categorised the teachings he inherited into ten stages or levels of spiritual realisation. He wrote at length on the difference between exoteric (both mainstream Buddhism and Mahayana) and esoteric (Vajrayana) Buddhism. The differences between exoteric and esoteric can be summarised as:
Esoteric teachings are preached by the Dharmakaya Buddha which Kukai identifies with Mahavairocana. Exoteric teachings are preached by the Nirmanakaya Buddha, also known as Gautama Buddha, or one of the Sambhoghakaya Buddhas.
Exoteric Buddhism holds that the ultimate state of Buddhahood is ineffable, and that nothing can be said of it. Esoteric Buddhism holds that while nothing can be said of it verbally, it is readily communicated via esoteric rituals which involve the use of mantras, mudras, and mandalas. Kukai held that exoteric doctrines were merely provisional, skillful means (upaya) on the part of the Buddhas to help beings according to their capacity to understand the Truth. The esoteric doctrines by comparison are the Truth itself, and are a direct communication of the "inner experience of the Dharmakaya's enlightenment".
Kukai held, along with the Huayan (Jp. Kegon) school that all phenomena could be expressed as 'letters' in a 'World-text'. Mantra, mudra, and mandala are special because they constitute the 'language' through which the Dharmakaya (i.e. Reality itself) communicates. Although portrayed through the use of anthropomorphic metaphors, Shingon does not see the Dharmakaya Buddha as a god, or creator. The Dharmakaya is in fact a symbol for the true nature of things which is impermanent and empty of any essence. The teachings were passed from Mahavairocana.
In Shingon, Mahavairocana Tathagata is the universal or primordial Buddha that is the basis of all phenomena, present in each and all of them, and not existing independently or externally to them. The goal of Shingon is the realization that one's nature is identical with Mahavairocana, a goal that is achieved through initiation (for ordained followers), meditation and esoteric ritual practices. This realization depends on receiving the secret doctrine of Shingon, transmitted orally to initiates by the school's masters. Body, speech, and mind participate simultaneously in the subsequent process of revealing one's nature: the body through devotional gestures (mudra) and the use of ritual instruments, speech through sacred formulas (mantra), and mind through meditation.
Shingon places special emphasis on the Thirteen Buddhas, a grouping of various Buddhas and boddhisattvas, including Amitabha Buddha (Amida Nyorai), Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva (Kannon), Maitreya Bodhisattva (Miroku) and Shakyamuni Buddha (Shaka Nyorai).
One feature that Shingon shares in common with the other school of Esoteric Buddhism (Tendai) is the use of seed-syllables or bija along with anthropomorphic and symbolic representations, to express Buddhist deities in their mandalas. There are four types of mandalas:

Maha-mandala (anthropomorphic representation)
Seed-syllable mandala or dharma-mandala
Samaya-mandala (representations of the vows of the deities in the form of articles they hold or their mudras)
Karma-mandala (representing the activities of the deities in the three-dimensional form of statues, etc)

An ancient Indian Sanskrit syllabary script known as siddham is used to write mantras. A core meditative practice of Shingon is ajikan, "Meditating on the Letter 'A'", which uses the siddham letter representing that sound as a. Other Shingon meditations are "full moon" visualization, "visualization of the five elements arrayed in the body" and "series of five meditations to attain Buddhahood".
The essence of Shingon Mantrayana practice is to experience Reality by emulating the inner realization of the Dharmakaya through the meditative ritual use of mantra, mudra and visualization of mandala (ie. the three mysteries). All Shingon followers gradually develop a teacher-student relationship, whereby a teacher learns the disposition of the student and teaches practices accordingly. For lay practitioners, there is no initiation ceremony beyond the Kechien Kanjo, which is normally offered only at Mt. Koya, but is not required. In the case of disciples wishing to ordain as priests, the process is more complex and requires initiations in various mandalas, rituals and so on. In either case, the stress is on finding a qualified and willing mentor who will guide you through Shingon practice at a gradual pace. Esoteric Buddhism is also practiced, in the Japanese Tendai School founded at around the same time as the Shingon School in the early 9th century (Heian period). The term used there is Mikkyo. Branches of Shingon I visited are Toji, in Kyoto and Koyasan.

Tibetan Vajrasattva holds the vajra in his right hand and a bell in his left hand.

Here Vairocana comes across as a human-like entity that gives a discourse to heavenly beings, even as an angel - a passed over spirit - speculating on his self existence. He is being identified with the inherent, aware, primordial state, the suchness existing within the emptiness. This becomes one and the same person and body in Vairocana, thus he is identified as the uncreated Primal Buddha. When Hindus speak of an entity not born of woman, ie., uncreated, this can only refer to the original creator and source of all beings and creation. But Buddhism rejects the notion of a creator. Has not Vairocana now assumed that role?
Becoming one with this suchness is not the same as originally being it.
The entity portrays himself as a personification of enlightenment, the expanse of the perfect mind, the void, or what I interpret as the Holy Ghost, and declares this to be Vairocana himself. Perhaps these are indeed hidden qualities of the sought after unknown primordial originator/creator, in part. Had not there been a religious suppression of knowledge in those days, we could have suspected that Vairocana was discoursing on a much older idea of self-realisation, which formerly referred to the incomprehensible Great Spirit, the All-Soul, All-Person not in the image of a man, nor a mere principle. The Buddhist version has omitted this part. But records of this are no longer around, save traces in the Vedas, which themselves have been corrupted.
It is easy to see through the speculation that Vairocana is the uncreated Primal Buddha. Oahspe would have it that there are yet higher gods in Nirvana than Vairocana, who themselves worship a yet higher incomprehensible primordial All-Person, who is far more to them than a state. On the path to the truth we regularly meet those who say "you are the Buddha", an "aspect of God" without going to the core, leaving them to one day gasp for another anthropomorphized Vairocana-like substitute for the eternal.
Perhaps "Mahavairocana Buddha's palace" is Haractu, the "Buddhist heavenly kingdom, the All Highest Heaven of Heavens" and Kabalactes is the fallen Lord who took the name Buddha, and 'Mahavairocana' is only an elaborate identity styled by Kabalactes' officer Yima. And maybe Yima has taken the alias 'Vajrasattva' (Diamond Mind). [See What Oahspe has to say about Buddhism for the explanation]
Because Kabalactes plagiarised the wisdom of Sakaya, and even took the name, Sakaya Muni [Sakyamuni], we must seek out in Vajrayana esoteric knowledge that which leads us to truth, and reject that which leads us into idolism, and slavery to a self-asserted God that had turned human faith "expediently" towards his own glory by revising the ancient "rituals and objects" to serve himself.

The Vajrasekhara Sutra is an important Buddhist tantra used in the Vajrayana, particularly Shingon. The sutra begins with Mahavairocana Buddha preaching the Dharma to a great host of Bodhisattvas, including Vajrasattva, in the Buddhist heaven of Akanishta. As he preaches the Dharma, Prince Sarvarthasiddhi, the esoteric name of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, is meditating under the Bodhi Tree. Enlightenment is imminent, but the Prince has still not attained it because he is still attached in some small way to his forsaken ascetic practices. Despairing over his inability to find Enlightenment, he is visited by Buddhist figures who were just now learning the Dharma from Mahavairocana.
These same deities proceed to teach him a more direct path to Enlightenment through esoteric ritual. The sutra then details the rituals used to actualize the Dharma. This sutra also introduces the Diamond Realm Mandala as a focus for meditative practices, and its use in the abhiseka ritual of initiation. As the prince has now experienced Enlightenment, he ascends to Mount Sumeru and constructs the Diamond Realm Mandala and initiates and converts the bodhisattvas gathered there, one by one, into esoteric deities who constitute the Mandala.
In esoteric ritual, the teacher of the esoteric Buddhism assumes the role of the Prince who constructs the Mandala, while the master and student repeat specific mantras in a form of dialogue. The new initiates are blindfolded, and are asked to toss a flower upon a mandala that is constructed. Where the flower lands helps decide which Buddhist figure the student should devote themselves to. The student's blindfold is removed and a vajra is placed in hand.

In Vajrayana Buddhism, the Diamond Realm is a metaphysical space inhabited by the Five Wisdom (Dhyani) Buddhas. The Diamond Realm Mandala is based on the Vajrasekhara Sutra. The Diamond Realm along with the Womb Realm Mandala forms the Mandala of the Two Realms, which form the core of Shingon rituals, including the initiation or abhiseka ritual. In traditional Shingon halls, the Diamond Realm Mandala is hung on the west wall symbolizing the final realization of Mahavairocana Buddha. The Womb Realm Mandala is hung on the east wall, symbolizing the young stage of Mahavairocana Buddha.

The Five Dhyani (Wisdom) Buddhas (Dhyani Skt. for "concentration"), are representations of the five qualities of the Buddha. They are a later development, based on the Yogacara elaboration of concepts concerning the jñana of the Buddhas, of the Trikaya ("three body") theory, which posits three "bodies" of the Buddha.

The Wisdom Buddhas, products of the Adi (primordial) buddha, are all aspects of the dharmakaya or "reality-body", which embodies the principle of enlightenment. Initially Aksobhya and Amitabha Buddhas represented wisdom and compassion respectively. A further distinction embodied the aspects of power, or activity, and the aspect of beauty, or spiritual riches. In the early Mahayana Sutra of Golden Light the figures are named Dundubishvara, and Ratnaketu, but over time their names changed to become Amoghasiddhi, and Ratnasambhava. The central figure came to be called Vairocana. When represented in a Vairocana mandala, the Buddhas are arranged like this:

								Akshobhya (east)
					Amoghasiddhi (north)			Vairocana (principal deity/ meditator)			RatnasambhavaRatnasa (south)
								Amitabha (west)

Amitabha is a celestial buddha of Mahayana. Amitabha is the principal buddha in the Pure Land sect. Amita ( infinite) and abha (light) is translatable as "Infinite Light". Pure Land Buddhism seems to have first become popular in northwest India/Pakistan and Afghanistan, from where it spread to Central Asia and China. Through his efforts, Amitabha created the "Pure Land" (Japanese: jodo) called Sukhavati (possessing happiness), or Dewachen (Tibetan) [hence the Devachanic Plane of Theosophy]. In Tibetan Vajrayana, Amitabha is considered one of the Five Dhyani Buddhas. His consort is a feminine form of Avalokiteshvara and the precursor of Guan Yin. His two main disciples (as had Shakyamuni) are Vajrapani and Avalokiteshvara, the former to his left and the latter to his right. Panchen Lamas are considered to be incarnations of Amitabha.
It can be difficult to distinguish Amitabha from Sakyamuni, as both are portrayed as possessing all the attributes of a buddha. Amitabha can often be distinguished by his mudra: depicted displaying the meditation mudra (thumbs touching and fingers together, while the earth-touching mudra (right hand pointed downward over the right leg, palm inward) is reserved for Sakyamuni. He can also be seen holding a lotus in his hands while displaying the meditation mudra. When standing, Amitabha is often shown with his left arm bare and extended downward with thumb and forefinger touching, with his right hand facing outward also with thumb and forefinger touching. His unique emblem is the lotus, thus associated with gentleness, openness, and purity.

The Womb Realm (Skt. garbhakosa-dhatu) is the metaphysical space inhabited by the Five Wisdom Kings. The Womb Realm is based on the Mahavairocana Sutra. The name of the mandala derives from the sutra, where it is said that Mahavairocana Buddha revealed the mandala's secret teachings to his disciple Vajrasattva from his "womb of compassion". In other translations, the term matrix realm or Matrix Mandala are used.

The Avatamsaka Sutra (Japanese: Kegon Kyo) or Flower Garland Sutra, is an influential Mahayana Sutra of East Asian Buddhism. This text describes a cosmos of infinite realms upon realms, mutually containing each other. The vision expressed was the foundation for the creation of the Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism, which was characterized by a philosophy of interpenetration. Huayan is known as Kegon in Japan. The sutra was written in stages, beginning from at least 500 years after the death of the Buddha. The sutra has not survived in Sanskrit. The sutra, among the largest in the Buddhist canon, contains 40 chapters of overarching themes:

The interdependency of all phenomena (dharmas).
The progression of the Buddhist path to full Enlightenment, or Buddhahood.

Chapter 26, the Dasabhumika Sutra or Sutra of the Ten Stages details the ten stages of development a bodhisattva must undergo to attain supreme enlightenment. The last chapter, the Gandavyuha Sutra, details the journey of the youth Sudhana, who undertakes a pilgrimage at the behest of the bodhisattva Manjushri. Sudhana encounters The Tower of Maitreya, which along with Indra's net is one of the most startling metaphors for the infinite.

In the middle of the great tower... he saw the billion-world universe... and everywhere there was Sudhana at his feet... Thus Sudhana saw Maitreya's practices of... transcendence over countless eons (kalpa), from each of the squares of the check board wall... In the same way Sudhana... saw the whole supernal manifestation, was perfectly aware it, understood it, contemplated it, used it as a means, beheld it, and saw himself there.

The Gandavyhua suggests that with a subtle shift of perspective we may come to see that the enlightenment that the pilgrim so fervently sought was not only with him at every stage of his journey, but before it began as well — that enlightenment is not something to be gained, but "something" the pilgrim never departed from.
The final master that Sudhana visits is the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra (Universal Worthy), who teaches him that wisdom only exists for the sake of putting it into practice; that it is only good insofar as it benefits all living beings. When this done, the world of the Gandavyuha (ceases) to be a mystery, a realm devoid of form and corporeality, for now it overlaps this earthly world; no, it becomes that "Thou art it" and there is a perfect fusion of the two.

Indra's net (also Indra's jewels or pearls) is a metaphor used to illustrate the concepts of emptiness, dependent origination, and interpenetration in Buddhist philosophy. It was developed by the Mahayana school in the 3rd century scriptures of the Avatamsaka Sutra, and later by the Chinese Huayan school between the 6th and 8th century. Buddhist concepts of interpenetration hold that all phenomena are intimately connected; Indra's net symbolizes a universe where infinitely repeated mutual relations exist between all members of the universe. This idea is communicated in the image of the interconnectedness of the universe as seen in the net of the Vedic god Indra, whose net hangs over his palace on Mount Meru, the axis mundi of Vedic cosmology and mythology. Indra's net has a multifaceted jewel at each vertex, and each jewel is reflected in all of the other jewels.

"Imagine a multidimensional spider's web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image."

Alan Watts

Kegon is the name of the Japanese transmission of the Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism. Huayan studies were founded in Japan when, in 736, the scholar-priest Roben invited Shinsho (Jap: Shinjo) to give lectures on the Avatamsaka Sutra at what is now Todai-ji. Kegon later combined its doctrines with those of Vajrayana.
The Huayan school is a tradition of Mahayana philosophy. It is based on the Sanskrit Flower Garland Sutra (crowning glory of profound understanding). The doctrines of the Huayan school ended up having profound impact on the philosophical attitudes of all of East Asian Buddhism. Established during the end of the Sui and beginning of Tang dynasties (c. 600-700 C.E.), it centered on the philosophy of mutual containment and interpenetration of all phenomena; that one thing contains all things in existence, and that all things contain one.
Truth (reality) is understood as encompassing and interpenetrating falsehood (illusion), and vice versa Good is understood as encompassing and interpenetrating evil
Similarly, all mind-made distinctions are understood as "collapsing" in the enlightened understanding of emptiness.
Since a phenomenon originates dependently, it is empty of own-being. Therefore it is not itself, and phenomenal form is empty and nonexistent. When one understands that origination is without self-nature, then there is no origination.
Any empty phenomenon is an expression of, and the medium for, the ultimate truth of emptiness. The union of opposites effected here is the identity between conditioned, relative reality and the ultimate truth of suchness. "When the great wisdom of perfect clarity gazes upon a minute hair, the universal sea of nature, the true source, is clearly manifest."
When the ultimate truth of emptiness becomes manifest to the viewer, each phenomenon is paradoxically perceived as interpenetrating with and containing all others.
In each and every hair [of the lion] there is the golden lion. All of the lions contained in each and every hair simultaneously and suddenly penetrate into one hair. Therefore, within each and every hair there are unlimited lions.
These paradoxes originate in the tension between conventional truth and ultimate truth.
The school suffered severely during the Buddhist purge of 841-845, initiated by Emperor Wuzong, never to recover its former strength. Nonetheless, its profound metaphysics, such as that of the Four Dharmadhatu of interpenetration, had a deep impact on surviving East Asian schools.

Dharmadhatu was originally found in the Avatamsaka-sutra and was fully developed by the Hua-yen school into a systematic doctrine.
Dharmadhatu (Sanskrit) may be defined as the 'dimension', 'realm' or 'sphere' (dhatu) of Dharma and denotes the collective 'one-taste' of Dharmata/Tathata (thusness, suchness, being 'in the moment'). In Mahayana, it means "realm of phenomena", "realm of Truth" and of the noumenon, where Tathata (Reality "as-it-is"), emptiness, dependent co-arising and the unconditioned, uncreated, perfect and eternal Buddha are one. Dharmadhatu is defined as: "The ‘realm of phenomena;’ the suchness in which emptiness and dependent origination are inseparable. The nature of mind and phenomena which lies beyond arising, dwelling and ceasing. The ground for buddhahood, nirvana, purity, and permanence. It is the purified mind in its natural state, free of the obscuration rendered by dualism; as well as the essence-quality or nature of mind, the fundamental ground of consciousness of the trikaya accessed via the mindstream.
To an entity that has realised their buddha-dhatu or essential buddha-nature, dharmadhatu is also referred to as the dharmakaya (body of Dharma) of that entity. Dharmadhatu has a nonlinear, holistic essence-quality, unbounded by space and time. All dharmas in the past, present and future are all together in the Dharmadhatu. Bodhicitta (or heartmind) is the medium through which dharmadhatu is perceived and realised. The Five Wisdoms
1. Dharmadhatu wisdom 2. Mirror-like wisdom 3. Equality wisdom 4. Discriminating wisdom 5. All-accomplishing wisdom
In the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the Buddha states of himself that he is the "boundless Dharmadhatu" - the Totality itself.

Todai-ji is a Buddhist temple complex in Nara. Its Great Buddha Hall (largest wooden building in the world) houses the world's largest statue of the Buddha Vairocana (Daibutsu). The temple also serves as the headquarters of the Kegon school.
During the Tenpyo era Emperor Shomu issued an edict in 741 to promote the construction of provincial temples throughout the nation. Todai-ji was appointed as the Provincial temple of Yamato Province and the head of all the provincial temples. With the alleged coup d'état in 729, an outbreak of smallpox around 735–737, worsened by consecutive years of poor crops, then followed by a rebellion in 740, the country was in a chaotic position. Emperor Shomu had been forced to move the capital four times, indicating the level of instability .
Todai-ji served as the central administrative temple for the provincial temples for the six Buddhist schools in Japan at the time: the Hosso, Kegon, Jojitsu, Sanron, Ritsu and Kusha.
Japanese Buddhism during this time still maintained the lineage of the Vinaya (discipline) and all officially licensed monks had to take their ordination under the Vinaya at Todai-ji. In 754, ordination was given by Ganjin, who arrived after crossing the sea from China to former Emperor Shomu. Later Buddhist monks, including Kukai and Saicho took their ordination here as well. Kukai's administration of the Sogo, additional ordination ceremonies were added, including ordination of the Bodhisattva Precepts from the Brahma Net Sutra and the esoteric Precepts, or Samaya, from Kukai's newly established Shingon school.
As the center of power in Japanese Buddhism shifted away from Nara to Mount Hiei and the Tendai sect, Todai-ji's role in maintaining authority declined as well. The Vinaya lineage also died out, thus no more ordination ceremonies take place at Todai-ji. The Buddha was completed in 751.

What Oahspe has to say about Buddhism

Osaka and Nara
I went on a half day walk of Osaka, stopping at the Green Earth vegetarian restaurant for a vegan lunch, and the castle with its huge park and mote, then bought a ticket to Nara.
One can still find wilderness right on the edge of Nara city if one goes beyond the Kasuga Shrine. As part of the lantern festival, which was on when I arrived, this shrine held rituals and offerings which I was priveleged to see, early in the morning. I was captivated by the Shinto rituals, which involved costumed dancers, musicians and an entourage of priests that led the devotees to another shrine up the track to perform a similar ritual again. By wandering through the shrine complex I gathered that it was a mini-university for initiates into this path, as I could hear students and musicians practicing singing and learning to play traditional instruments as I passed by.

While I toured the Todai-ji temple in Nara I copied some of the English translation explanation given for the lotus pedestal designs. The Daibutsu (the statue of Buddha Vairocana) sits atop a lotus pedestal. The full version is as follows:
"The petals of the lotus pedestal on which the Great Buddha Vairocana is seated are incised in the hairline engraving with identical designs, dating from the Nara period (8th cent.), which depict the "Lotus-Matrix World-System" (Skt.Padma-garbha-loka-dhatu; Jp.Rengezo sekai). Each petal is divided into two main parts. The upper half depicts a seated Tathagata in the center who is expounding the Dharma and flanked on each side by a group of eleven Bodhisattvas, with both groups arranged symmetrically. In the lower half there are twenty-six horizontal lines with small Buddha images-images and palaces arrayed between them, and below these there are seven pairs of lotus petals, each consisting of one petal turned upwards and the other facing downwards. The upward-turned petals are engraved with mountain ranges, palaces, and so on, and also an iverted trapezium, which contains a small Sakyamuni traid and the heads of four animals.
Stated simply, this complex design may be described as a pictorial representation of the religious world view set forth in the Avatamsaka-sutra (Jp.Kegon-kyou). The Avatamsaka-sutra describes the state attained by Sakyamuni when, after six years of austerities, he had a momentous religious experience and became a Buddha of unbounded expanse. According to this sutra, Sakyamuni "emitted one thousand million light rays, illuminating the entire trichiliocosm, and made manifest one thousand million Jambudvipas.... one thousand million Mt.Sumerus, one thousand million Trayastrimsa Heavens.... and everything in this world." The lower half of the depiction of the Lotus-Matrix World-System shows the trichilicosm illuminated by Sakyamuni, with the seven pairs of lotus petals along the bottom each representing a world-system centered on Mt.Sumeru, which includes Jambudvipa, the world inhabited by human beings, in the shape of an inverse trapezium, and in the Avatamsaka-sutra this is called a "small world system". The number 'seven' here represents infinity, and these seven pairs of petals thus indicate that the trichilcosm is composed of an infinite number of these small world-system. In this manner the Avatamsaka-sutra describes how not only individual human beings, but all existents are infinitely interconnected and act upon one another while completely enveloped in the light of the Buddha Vairocana.

Kofun, Tumuli and the Mound Builders
The 'Lonely Planet' mentioned kofun sites around Nara. Tumuli (mounds of earth and stones raised over a grave) have interested me because of the reference to ‘mound builders’ in Oahspe. According to Oahspe the mound builders were Ihins, ie., the first race to have a spirit capable of life after death. Asu (Adam), the first earthly race (hence, made from clay as mythology suggests) had life but not a self-conscience spirit, ie., purely an earthly (clay), animal-man. The account of Adam and Eve refers to the union of certain fallen angels with Asu, the resulting offspring was Man (Ihins ie., those begotten of both heaven and earth, capable of being taught spiritual things). This could only happen during an antediluvian era (about 80,000 years ago) at a suitable time and environment for angels to come and partake of the first fruits of mortality and immortality.

10. To the tree I gave life; to man I gave life and spirit also. And the spirit I made was separate from the corporeal life.
11. Out of se‘mu [possibly the earliest fossils called stromatolites, which are mats of blue-green algae, are evidence for se‘mu] I made man, and man was only like a tree, but dwelling in ha‘k (darkness); and I called him Asu.
12. I looked over the wide heavens that I had made, and I saw countless millions of spirits of the dead, who had lived and died on other corporeal worlds before the earth was made.
13. I spoke in the firmament, and My voice reached to the uttermost places. And there came in answer to the sounds of My voice, myriads of angels from the roadway in heaven, where the earth travels. I said to them, Behold! I have created a new world; come and enjoy it. Yes, you shall learn from it how it was with other worlds in ages past.
14. There alighted upon the new earth millions of angels from heaven; but many of them had never fulfilled a corporeal life, having died in infancy, and these angels did not comprehend procreation or corporeal life.
15. And I said, go and deliver Asu from darkness, for he shall also rise in spirit to inherit My etherean worlds.
16. And now the earth was in the latter days of se‘mu, and the angels could readily take on corporeal bodies for themselves; by force of their wills, clothing themselves with flesh and bones out of the elements of the earth. By the side of the Asuans they took on corporeal forms.
17. And I said: Go forth and partake of all that is on the earth; but do not partake of the tree of life, lest in that labor you become procreators and as if dead to the heavens from which you came.
18. But those who had never learned corporeal things, being imperfect in wisdom, did not understand Jehovih‘s words, and they dwelt with the Asuans, and were tempted, and partook of the fruit of the tree of life; and lo and behold they saw their own nakedness. And there was born of the first race (Asu) a new race called man (I‘hin); and Jehovih took the earth out of the travail of se‘mu and the angels gave up their corporeal bodies.
19. Jehovih said: Because you have raised up those who shall be joint heirs in heaven, you shall tread the earth with your feet, and walk by the sides of the new born, being guardian angels over them, for they are of your own flesh and kin.
20. The fruit of your seed I have quickened with My spirit, and man shall come forth with a birthright to My etherean worlds.
21. As I have quickened the seed of the first born, so will I quicken all seed to the end of the earth. And each and every man-child and woman-child born into life I will quicken with a new spirit, which shall proceed out of Me at the time of conception. Neither will I give to any spirit of the higher or lower heaven power to enter a womb, or a fetus of a womb, and be born again.
22. As the corporeal earth passes away, so shall the first race Asu pass away; but as I do not pass away, so shall the spirit of man not pass away

Book of Jehovih Ch.6 of Oahspe

Mound Builder refers to prehistoric inhabitants of North America who constructed various styles of earthen mounds for burial, residential and ceremonial purposes. These included Archaic, Woodland period (Adena and Hopewell cultures), and Mississippian period Pre-Columbian cultures dating from roughly 3000 BC to the 16th century CE, and living in the Great Lakes region, the Ohio River region, and the Mississippi River region.
Through the mid-nineteenth century, European Americans did not recognize that ancestors of the Native Americans built the mounds of the eastern U.S. There were theories that the mound builders were Vikings who came to North America and eventually disappeared, or that Greeks, Africans, Chinese or assorted Europeans built the mounds. During the 1800s, a common folklore was that the Lost Ten Tribes were the ancestors of Native Americans and the mound builders. The Book of Mormon (1830) describes two waves of immigration from Mesopotamia: the Jaredites (ca. 3000 - 2000 BCE) and an Israelite group in 590 BCE (called Nephites, Lamanites and Mulekites). Oahspe never mentions any immigrants to the Americas since the sinking of Pan, when the Ihins that survived the flood sailed there. Yet, Ihins were not the same race as the Native Americans of today.
Lafcadio Hearn suggested that the mounds were built by people from Atlantis. Reference to an alleged race appears in the poem "The Prairies" (1832) by William Cullen Bryant.
In the 16th-19th centuries, Europeans and Americans thought that a race other than one related to the Native Americans had built the mounds. When Europeans first arrived in America, they never witnessed the American Indians building mounds; when asked about the mounds the Indians did not know anything about them. Yet the Spanish, had written numerous accounts about the Indians' construction of mounds. A few French expeditions reported staying with Indian societies who built mounds.
People also claimed that the Indians were not the mound builders because the mounds and related artifacts were older than Indian cultures. The Indians encountered by the Europeans and Americans were not known to engage in metallurgy. Some artifacts that were found in relation to the mounds were inscribed with symbols. As the Europeans did not know of any Indian cultures that had a writing system, they assumed a different group had created them. It was believed that associated stone, metal, and clay artifacts were too complex for the Indians to make.
Since the 19th century, scholarly consensus has been that the mounds were constructed by Indigenous peoples of the Americas, ancestors of Native American tribes, who themselves did not know who built the mounds.

Monks Mound, a flat-topped pyramidal structure at Cahokia, Collinsville, Illinois is the largest earthwork north of Mexico, at over 100 feet (30 m) tall.
Watson Brake, located in the floodplain of the Ouachita River near Monroe in northern Louisiana, United States. Watson Brake consists of an oval formation of 11 mounds from three to 25 feet tall connected by ridges to form an oval near 900 feet across. It has been dated to about 3400 BC. In the Americas, mound building started at an early date, well before the pyramids of Egypt were constructed. Watson Brake is considered the earliest mound complex in North America and is the earliest dated complex construction in the Americas. Watson Brake's dating is nearly 2,000 years before Poverty Point, Louisiana (2500-1000 BC).
The Archaic period was followed by the Woodland period (1000 BC). The Adena and subsequent Hopewell and other mound-building cultures of this period built monuments from Illinois to Ohio.
Around 900–1450 CE, the Mississippian culture developed, primarily along the river valleys. The largest center was Cahokia in Illinois.

While I was in America previously, I visited the Hopewell mounds, near Chillicote Ohio. The museum there dismisses any connection with a previous race. I had also seen the pyramids of China, near Xian ... earth pyramids seemingly a size comparable to the Mesoamerican and Egyptian pyramids I'd seen on other journeys. They were perfectly square and pyramid shaped, and farming went on around them as if they didn’t matter.

After having visited all the main sites in Nara I then went on to search for the Kofun. These are megalithic tombs or tumuli in Japan, said to be constructed between early 3rd century and early 7th century (Kofun period, 250 to 538). I went to the Nara tourist office to ask them where the kofun were. They pointed out many; the closest was literally hidden in the middle of the city, one block away. So I took a walk to find it. Although it was staring me in the face, I couldn’t identify it. I finally realised it was the giant oblong hill covered with trees. I jumped the fence, crossed the narrow moat where it was passable across the water, and took a walk over the top and to the other end. It was totally deserted, but surrounding it were the crowded blocks of Nara residents.
On my last day in Nara I caught a bus to the other main mounds, in one part of the north-western outskirts of Nara. These were far larger, like islands in a moat, and the moats were the size of lakes that circumscribed these huge hills jutting out of the flat plain. Because they are covered by trees its hard to distinguish them. If fact, every hill I saw around Japan after that, which was jutting out of flat country, I suspected to be a kofun.

Most of the Kofun have a keyhole-shaped mound (one square end and one circular end), which is unique to ancient Japan. There are also circular type, "two conjoined rectangles" type, and square type kofun. In the Saki Kofun group, all of circular parts are looking toward the north.
Kofun range in size from several meters to over 400m in length. The largest is Daisen kofun in Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture, which has been attributed to be the tomb of the Emperor Nintoku. The funeral chamber was located beneath the round part and consisted of a group of megaliths. In 1972 the unlooted Takamatsuzuka Tomb was found in Asuka (just south of Nara). Inside the tightly assembled rocks, white lime cement plasters were pasted and drawn with colored pictures depicting the court or constellations. A stone coffin was placed in the chamber and swords and bronze mirrors were laid inside and outside of the coffin.
Most of the tombs of chiefs in the Yayoi period (500 BC to 300 AD) were square-shaped mounds surrounded by ditches. A notable example is 45 meters wide and 5 meters high, and has a shaft chamber. One of the first keyhole-shaped kofun was built in the southeastern part of the Nara Basin in the middle of the 3rd century, is 280 meters long and 30 meters high, much bigger than previous Yayoi tombs.
A wooden coffin was placed at the bottom of a shaft, and the surrounding walls were built up by flat stones and megalithic stones were placed as a roof. Bronze mirrors, iron swords, magatama, clay vessels and other artifacts were found in undisturbed tombs. Some scholars assume the buried person of Hashihaka kofun was the ancient shamaness Queen Himiko of Yamataikoku, mentioned in the Chinese history texts. The construction of gigantic kofun is the result of the relatively centralized governance structure in the Nara Basin, possibly the origin of the Yamato polity and the Imperial linage of Japan.

The Kofun period (250 to 538) follows the Yayoi period (500 BC to 300 AD). The word kofun is Japanese for the type of burial mounds dating from this era.
The Kofun and the subsequent Asuka periods are sometimes referred to collectively as the Yamato period. The Kofun period (the oldest era of recorded history in Japan) is distinguished from the Asuka period by its cultural differences. The Kofun period is illustrated by a shinto culture which existed prior to Buddhism. The leader of the powerful clan which won control over much of Honshu and the northern half of Kyushu established the Imperial House of Japan.

Kofun are defined as the earthen burial mounds built for the people of the ruling class during the 3rd to 7th centuries in Japan. The mounds contained large stone burial chambers. Some are surrounded by moats. The oldest Japanese kofun is said to be Hokenoyama Kofun located in Sakurai (just near Asuka), Nara, which dates to the late 3rd century. In the Makimuku district of Sakurai, later keyhole kofuns (Hashihaka Kofun, Shibuya Mukaiyama Kofun) were built around the early 4th century. The trend of the keyhole kofun first spread from Yamato to Kawachi (where gigantic kofun such as Daisenryo Kofun exist), and then throughout the country (except for Tohoku region) in the 5th century. Keyhole kofun disappeared later in the 6th century, probably because of the drastic reformation which took place in the Yamato court; Nihon Shoki records the introduction of Buddhism at this time. The last two great kofun are the Imashirozuka kofun (length: 190m) of Osaka, which is believed by current scholars to be the tomb of Emperor Keitai, and the Iwatoyama kofun (length: 135m) of Fukuoka which was recorded in Fudoki of Chikugo to be the tomb of Iwai, the political archrival of Keitai.

While conventionally assigned to the period from 250 AD, the actual start of Yamato rule is disputed. The start of the court is also linked with the controversy of Yamataikoku and its fall. Regardless, it is generally agreed that Yamato rulers possessed keyhole kofun culture and held hegemony in Yamato up to the 4th century. The regional autonomy of local powers remained throughout the period, particularly in places such as Kibi (current Okayama prefecture), Izumo (current Shimane prefecture), and Hi (central Kyushu); it was only in the 6th century that the Yamato clans could be said to be dominant over the entire southern half of Japan. Yamato's relationships with China is likely to have begun in the late 4th century, according to the Book of Song.
The Yamato polity, which emerged by the late 5th century, was distinguished by powerful clans (Gozoku). Each clan was headed by a patriarch who performed sacred rites to the clan's kami. Clan members were the aristocracy, and the kingly line that controlled the Yamato court was at its pinnacle. The Kofun period is also sometimes called the Yamato period since this local chieftainship arose to become the Imperial dynasty at the end of the Kofun period. Yamato and its dynasty however were just one rival polity among others throughout the Kofun era. Japanese archaeologists emphasise that in the early half of the Kofun period other regional chieftainships, such as Kibi were in close contention for importance. The Tsukuriyama Kofun of Kibi is the fourth largest kofun in Japan.

The Yamato court ultimately exercised power over clans in Kyushu and Honshu, bestowing titles, some hereditary, on clan chieftains. The Yamato name became synonymous with all of Japan as the Yamato rulers suppressed the clans and acquired agricultural lands. Based on Chinese models (including the adoption of the Chinese written language), they started to develop a central administration and an imperial court attended by subordinate clan chieftains but with no permanent capital. The famous powerful clans included the Kibi clans in the Izumo Province. The Nakatomi and Inbe clans handled rituals. The crafts were organized into guilds.
The Yamato court had ties to the Gaya confederacy. There is archaeological evidence from the Kofun tombs, which show similarities in form, art, and clothing of the depicted nobles. Based on the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, Japanese historians claimed Gaya to be a colony of the Yamato state, a theory that is now widely rejected. More likely all these states were tributaries to the Chinese dynasties to some extent. However, Chinese scholars point to the Book of Song of the Liu Song Dynasty, written between 441-513, presenting the sovereign of Japan as the suzerain of the Gaya Confederacy. This interpretation is also widely rejected even in Japan as there is no evidence of Japanese rule in Gaya or any other part of Korea. In recent years, Kofun can be found with jades in Japan, Baekje area and Gaya confederacy area. The legend of the 4th century Prince Yamato Takeru alludes to the borders of the Yamato and battlegrounds in the area. A frontier was close to the later Izumo province. Another frontier, in Kyushu, was apparently somewhere north of today's Kumamoto prefecture.
While the rulers' titles were diplomatically King, they locally titled themselves as Okimi (Great King) during this period. Two swords had inscriptions of Amenoshita Shiroshimesu ("ruling Heaven and Earth") and Okimi. The title of Amenoshita Shiroshimesu Okimi was used up to 7th century, until being replaced by Tenno. Clans and local chieftains that made up the Yamato polity claimed descent from the imperial family or other tribal Gods. Archeological evidence is found in the Inariyama sword, on which the bearer recorded the names of his ancestors to claim its origin to Obiko who was recorded in Nihon Shoki as a son of Emperor Kogen. There are also a number of clans having origins in China or the Korean peninsula.
While writing was largely unknown to the indigenous Japanese of this period, the literary skills of foreigners seem to have become increasingly appreciated by the Japanese elite in many regions. Much of the material culture of the Kofun period is barely distinguishable from that of the contemporaneous southern Korean peninsula, demonstrating that at this time Japan was in close political and economic contact with continental Asia through Korea. Bronze mirrors cast from the same mould have been found on both sides of the Tsushima Strait.
The Kofun period gave way to the Asuka period in mid-6th century AD with the introduction of Buddhism. The Asuka period coincided with the reunification of China under the Sui Dynasty later in this century. According to the Book of Sui, Silla and Baekje greatly valued relations with Wa (Japan) of the Kofun period, and the Korean kingdoms made diplomatic efforts to maintain their good standing with the Japanese.
The archaeological record, and ancient Chinese sources, indicate that the various tribes and chiefdoms of Japan did not begin to coalesce into states until 300 AD, when large tombs began to appear while there were no contacts between western Japan and Korea or China. Some describe the "mysterious century" as a time of internecine warfare as various chiefdoms competed for hegemony on Kyushu and Honshu. Even more complicating is the Nihon Shoki referencing the Koreans to be the progenitor of Yamato. Due to these conflicting information nothing can be concluded for the book of Song or Nihon Shoki. Emperor Tenno's grandfather was Korean. There is no evidence of Japan ever having been sophisticated enough to control any part of Korea during the time of Jingu. There is archeological evidence of Koreans going to Japan during this time. Finding Northern Wei Chinese horse sculptures, Chinese bronze mirrors, painting and iron-ware arouses the question of why would a Japanese culture that doesn't have Korean ceramic ability or horses yet have horse sculptures in their tombs. Decorated tombs and painted tumuli which date from the fifth century and later found in Japan are generally accepted as Korean peninsula exports to Japan. The Takamatsuzuka Tomb has paintings of a woman dressed in clothes similar to wall paintings from Goguryeo and Tang Dynasty China. In addition, Chinese astrology was being introduced during this time.
Chinese chronicles note that horses were absent from the islands of Japan; they are first noted in the chronicles during the reign of Nintoku, most likely imported by Chinese and Korean immigrants.
Keyhole kofuns were also recently discovered in the Gaya confederacy region of the Korean peninsula. This suggests a shared relationship between the Yamato and Baekje during the 3rd and the 7th centuries AD. Earrings discovered in Silla and Kaya tombs are very similar to Japanese earrings dated to the Kofun period, "The ultimate source of such elaborate techniques as granulation is probably the Greek and Etruscan goldsmiths of western Asia and Europe, whose skills were transmitted to northern China and later to Korea. Chinese Han styles of tomb construction were gradually adopted in all three kingdoms of Korea, mainly from the 4th century onwards. The tombs in the southern part of Korea and Japan appear to have a relationship. However, all the kofun-style tombs discovered in Korea have been dated as younger than those found in Japan.
In 1976 Japan stopped all foreign archeologist from studying the Gosashi tomb which is suppose to be the resting place of Emperor Jingu. Prior to 1976 foreigners did have access. Recently in 2008, Japan has allowed controlled limited access to foreign archeologists, but the international community still has many unanswered questions. National geographics wrote Japan "has kept access to the tombs restricted, prompting rumors that officials fear excavation would reveal bloodline links between the "pure" imperial family and Korea".

Kyoto, and the Mystifying Bamboo Groves
Kyoto was a good finale to my trip. I was there for a week, and could take my time visiting the many temple complexes, checking out the historical districts, and some Shinto shrines.
Beginning with the Kiyomizu-dera, a wooden temple supported by pillars off the slope of a mountain, and walking north along the eastern paths along the foot of the mountains down Sannen and Ninen Zaka (lanes), into the historical Gion and Pontocho geisha quarters, wandering into the commercial center to the Nishiki market, and walking back through the Yasaka jinja (a Shinto shrine) to the Maruyama koen (gardens), can be a whole day's sightseeing.
Next day continued north and visited the Chion-in temple complex, and then entered the Philosopher's Walk, which begins at the Nanzen-ji temple complex where is a red brick aqueduct full of rushing fresh mountain water. Further up is a waterfall. I visited the small Honen-in temple and had a philosophical chat with an interested Japanese devotee of Honen.
On another day I bought a day bus pass and began by touring the Daitoku-ji Zen temple complex, then jumped off and on the bus whose route goes on to the Kinkaku-ji or temple of the Golden Pavilion; then Ryoan-ji, famous for its rock garden, and Ninna-ji. On the way back I dropped in to the To-ji temple, since this was made the first Esoteric Buddhist centre in Kyoto by Kukai.
Other places I visited included the northern fork of the Kamo gawa (river) at Kyoto, the Sanjusangen temple to see the spectacle of the 1001 statues of Kannon, the Fushimi Inari Shrine, famous for the surprisingly long Torii archways, the Nishijin textile center, and the a free guided tour of the Kyoto Imperial Palace. I managed to ask my burning question about the emperor’s family line name. The guide tried to convince me that the emperor didn’t have one. But I pressed her, saying that the family name of the Izumo lineage goes back to the sun goddess family. It was by this means that they are able to trace their origin and claim their title. She finally admitted that she didn’t know. I later found out that many Japanese people independantly think that the emperor didn’t have a family line name. This made me suspicious, but I am now finding out that even the Nihon Shoki is a wild, confused and unreliable scripture.

I ventured on to Arashiyama, on the beautiful Katsura river that night, just out of Kyoto, in the west. I had read about the groves of bamboo there, and arriving late at night walked alone down the dark streets and lanes and fumbled my way through a bamboo grove and went to sleep there. There are thousands of painful mosquitoes in Japan, by the way. I had a net. Early the next morning, I reflected on life and my journey, like I do at early hours. Later that morning I was compelled to write the following poem down. It was inspired by images of Japanese paintings that I saw inside the stately Tentyu-ji Zen temple, not far away.

Riddle from the Bamboo Grove

I am a thief, but I don’t steal
I have slaves, but I don’t enslave
I am an actor, but I don’t pretend
I am a murderer, but I don’t kill
I am here, but I am nowhere

I am a tiger praying on your envy
I am a beggar who failed to fly
I am a lion that evaluates your arrogance
And a horse that prances on by

I am the guardian of a swirling vortex
A glaring dragon who threatens your advance
My scaly tail dances in the gentle clouds
My eyes quicken your course

I am a red demon of eternal darkness
I wield a flaming sword of feigned honour
I come in the night in service to your warrior spirit
To impress your passion in chains of iron

I speak but no-one hears
I see you but you don’t see me
I know you but you don’t know me
I move you but you don’t move me
I feel you but you don’t feel me

I am your spirit, but you are not mine
I am majestic, free and powerful, are you?
I am pure, original and humble, are you?
I am merciful, selfless and charitable, are you?
I am your soul, I never die

I sleep in the safety of the bamboo grove
And wake in the morning sun

Oomoto, and sensei Masamichi Tanaka
The last significant thing I did in Japan was to visit the two spiritual centers of Oomoto, one in Kameoka, 20 km west of Kyoto, and the other in Ayabe, 80 km from Kyoto, on the same line.
I caught an early morning train to the rural community of Ayabe and walked to the Baisho-en, the birthplace and headquarters of Oomoto, at the foot of Mt. Hongu. It was still too early in the morning, but soon I was speaking with a member who invited me to join their tour. It was led by an elder dressed in Shinto priest attire. I found myself for the first time to be a Shinto participant, like hundreds of those I had seen around Japan. We were led into the various celebration and worship halls and the elder explained the detail of their mysteries in Japanese, only very little of which got translated for me in private.
I soon discovered that Omoto (great origin) is very outgoing. Oomoto performed the 'Noh' drama "Hagoromo" (the Robe of Feathers), in the cathedral of St John the divine in New York City, and in Canterbury cathedral in England in 1980. In return St John the Divine cathedral representatives gave a service in Japan. The memorabilia of exchanged gifts displayed in various glass cases in the celebration hall bore testimony to the occasion. Oomoto dignitaries were also, to my surprise, invited to visit Mecca as another exchange gesture. This initially moved me, considering their bold advent to unite religions in mutual love and purpose. But later, when I learned more of what they actually believed, I wondered how could this unite world religions that are already irreconcilably divided by widely varying accounts of their truth.
We entered two separate assembly/worship halls that were grand in construction and size but had little embellishment. The altar had not even symbols, let alone images, something I was pleased with, in a way, since it was a welcome change from the gaudy Buddhist embellishments and idols, and a testimony to the Unknowable Creator. The priest spoke at great length of the architecture and design. I thought about how I’d been told that there would be more English speaking teachers at the spiritual center, Ten'on-kyo, located in the center of the Kameoka, so I didn’t finish the tour but immediately went to Kameoka, the birthplace of Onisaburo Deguchi, abandoning my intention to go to see the Kofun near Asuka, in the Yamato plain, as it was my last day in Japan.

Omoto is “often categorised as a new Japanese religion originated from Shinto”. I knew of it years ago out of interest in the many things that are in common with Oahspe believers, namely:

They are close to the same period of time (1881, 1892)
Omoto was established by its spiritual founder’s automatic writings.
They believe in the ability of the spirit world to communicate through mortals
They are vegetarian.
They are passivists, or what Oahspe calls non-resistants.
They proclaim (as well as other ancient Shinto schools) the achievement of personal virtue as a step to universal harmony.
They believe in a “Great Original Spirit”

You have to walk around the castle moat and find the bridge so as to cross to the Ten'on-kyo center. I was referred to Masamichi Tanaka. I now know, he is the translator of Omoto spiritual texts into English, a sensei (teacher) and the moderator of the Omoto website. He was very open minded and friendly, and we got involved in deep discussion. Because he was interested in prophecy, and the Mayan calendar 2012 end date, I explained to him my idea of the galactic alignment, which he understood very fluently and comprehensively.
He has invited me as a friend in facebook from which I now know he is also a master of Noh and tea ceremony. He showed me a DVD called ‘History of Oomoto’, a copy of which was given to me.
According to this film Oomoto was persecuted in 1921 and 1935 by the Japanese government because of its doctrine of passivism and internationalism, and its growing social influence. The first "Omoto incident" was a government intervention. The Choseiden building was destroyed in Ayabe. During the "Second Omoto Incident" its grounds were confiscated, headquarters destroyed, and its leaders put in captivity. 3,000 followers were brought to trial and many tortured to death. In 1946 the supreme court found Oomoto not guilty, however Onisaburo gave up rights to compensation because it would be too heavy a burden for the recently defeated Japanes citizens. [The belief that Kunitokodachi and Susano-o no Mikoto were the original founders and rulers of Japan, who were driven away by Amaterasu Omikami, the divine ancestor of the imperial line, is what placed this religion in opposition to the government in pre-war Japan.]
Onisaburo Deguchi established the World Religious Federation in Beijing in 1925. I thought of how in 1893 Swami Vivekananda, (as well as Nikola Tesla) whose teacher was Ramakrishna, attended the World's Parliament of Religions held in Chicago, and became the first eastern yogi who brought Vedic philosophy and religion to the west.

After World War II, the organization reappeared as Aizen’en, a movement dedicated to achieve world peace, and with that purpose it was registered in 1946 under the Religious Corporations Ordinance.
In 1949 Omoto joined the World Federalist Movement and the world peace campaign. In 1952 the group returned to its older name, becoming the religious corporation Omoto under the Religious Corporations Law.
In 1950 Ayabe became the first Japanese city to declare itself a World Federation Peace City. The First World Religious Forum was held in November 1993 in Ayabe. The Second World Religious Forum, sponsored by the Oomoto Foundation was in Kyoto in 2002 and was attended by leaders of the Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Shinto faiths. The interreligious activity also celebrated the 110th anniversary of the founding of Oomoto and the 77th anniversary of Jinrui Aizenkai (Universal Love and Brotherhood Association), which was founded by Onisaburo Deguchi. Oomoto sponsors conferences like the World Religious Forum to foster interreligious dialogue on such issues as war, violence, religious fanaticism, famine, poverty, the environment and other obstacles to world peace. Oomoto’s doctrine holds that all religions come from the same source and that all gods are one god. Through organizations like Jinrui Aizenkai, Oomoto translates its ideals into a practical grassroots approach to its goals, sponsoring programs to educate, feed and provide health care to others. The "World Constitution and Parliament Association" and "The Institute on World Problems" have worked closely with the "Universal Love and Brotherhood Association".
Since the time of Onisaburo Deguchi, the constructed language Esperanto has played a major role in the Oomoto religion. Starting in 1924, the religion has published books and magazines in Esperanto and this continues today. Almost all of the 45,000 active members of Oomoto have studied some Esperanto, and around 1,000 are fluent in the language.
From 1925 until 1933 Oomoto maintained a mission in Paris. From there, missionaries travelled throughout Europe, spreading the word that Onisaburo Deguchi was a Messiah or Maitreya (Jp: Miroku) , who would unify the world. Oomoto members recognize notable religious figures from other religions as kami. For example, the creator of Esperanto, L. L. Zamenhof is revered as a god. However, all of these kami are believed to be aspects of a single God concept.

Masamichi also spoke of the mobilisation of the masses under no identifiable cause during the early period of Oomoto. This has a correspondence to the American movement, about which Oahspe prophecides that

"Neither shall they know the cause, but they shall come forth in tens of thousands, putting away all Gods and Lords and ancient tyranny, for My [the Great Spirit] sake.

After having trusted and been bemused by what Shinto priests had told me about Amaterasu, and their Emperor, and having tried to piece together the merit of Japanese cultural progress from a shogunate to a republic, I was relieved to be in the company of one who had a more liberal view about State Shinto's effect on people's lives.

Shinbutsu shugo (literally "fusion of kami and buddhas") is the Japanese syncretism of Buddhism and local religious beliefs. When Buddhism was introduced through China in the late Asuka period (6th century), rather than discard the old belief system the Japanese tried to reconcile it with the new, assuming both were true.
According to some scholars, Shinto has existed as such continuously since pre-history, and consists of all the peculiarly Japanese rituals and beliefs shaped by Japanese history from prehistory to the present. The term "Shinto" was coined in the 6th century to differentiate the loosely organized local religion from imported Buddhism. An opposing view argues that Shinto as an independent religion was born only in the modern period after emerging in the Middle Ages as an offshoot of Buddhism. Shinto as a distinct religion is a Meiji era invention of Japanese nationalist ideologues. The state formalization of kami rituals and the state ranking of shrines during the Heian period were not the emergence of Shinto as an independent religion, but an effort to explain local beliefs in Buddhist terms. The two characters for "Shinto" appear very early in the historical record, for example in the Nihon Shoki. But they were originally used as a name for Taoism or even for religion in general.
[This impies that Shinto is a Taoist import, but adapted to Japanese culture, which would explain its already immense centralised power before Buddhism]
Many features of Shinto, for example the worshiping of mirrors and swords or the very structure of Ise Shrine are typical of Taoism. The term Shinto in old texts therefore does not necessarily indicate something uniquely Japanese. According to this view, a syncretism of Buddhism and local beliefs produced today's Shinto. It needed to be a syncretism because "The kami of our land will be offended if we worship a foreign kami". Foreign kami were called banshin ("barbarian gods") or busshin ("Buddhist gods"), and understood to be like local ones.
By the time Buddhism entered Japan it had absorbed Hinduistic divinities like Brahma (Bonten in Japanese) and Indra (Taishakuten). When it arrived in Japan, it already had a disposition towards producing the combinatory gods that the Japanese would call shugoshin. Monks saw kami as inferior to their Buddhas. Hindu gods had been thought of as unilluminated and prisoner of sa?sara. Buddhist claims of superiority encountered resistance, and monks tried to overcome them by integrating kami in their system through a process of divided in three stages.
The first effort to reconcile the two is attributed to Prince Shotoku (574 - 622), but the differences were beginning to become manifest to the Japanese at the time of Emperor Temmu (673 - 86). Accordingly junguji ("shrine-temples") were founded. The idea that the kami were lost beings in need of liberation through the power of Buddha, subject to karma and reincarnation like human beings was taught in early Buddhist stories. To improve the kami's karma through rites and the reading of sutras, the monk would build a temple next to the kami's shrine[9]. Such groupings were created already in the 7th century, for example in Usa, Kyushu, where kami Hachiman was worshiped together with Miroku Bosatsu (Maitreya).
At the end of the same century, in what is considered the second stage of the amalgamation, the kami Hachiman was declared to be protector-deity of the Dharma and later, a bodhisattva. Shrines for him started to be built at temples. When the great Buddha at Todai-ji in Nara was built, within the temple grounds was also erected a shrine for Hachiman, according to the legend because of a wish expressed by the kami himself. Hachiman considered this his reward for having helped the temple find the gold and copper mines from which the metal for the great statue had come. After this, temples in the entire country adopted tutelary kami.
The third stage of the fusion took place in the ninth century with the development of the honji suijaku theory according to which Japanese kami are emanations of buddhas, bodhisattvas or devas who mingle with us to lead us to the Buddhist Way. Many kami changed from potentially dangerous spirits to be improved through contact with the Buddhist law to local emanations of buddhas and bodhisattvas which possess their wisdom. The buddhas and the kami were now indivisible.
The two religions however never fused completely but kept their identity inside a difficult, unsystematized and tense relationship. This relationship was, rather than between two systems, between particular kami and particular buddhas. The prohibition of Buddhism at the Ise and Kamo Shrines allowed them to freely develop their theories about the nature of kami. In 1868 with the Shinbutsu Bunri (the attempt for a separation of Shinto and Buddhism during the Meiji period), temples and shrines were separated by law. Most temples still have at least one small shrine, so the separation of the two religions is superficial, yet a difference between the two religions is now felt to exist.

At Ayabe I learned of the Omoto gods called Kuni-toko-tachi no Mikoto and Ushitora no Konjin. I was told they were two names for the same god, and that they represented the One Spirit. I brought them up with Masamichi. He said Kuni-toko-tachi translates to:

Kuni=Land, took=Eternal and tachi=standing, ruling, established
Ushitora=Northeast and Konjin=Powerful Spirit.

Since then I found this blog that says "there is a small settlement on the banks of the Yato River where there is an Omoto Shrine dedicated to Omotojin who is the original, local, land kami. Up in Izumo he is called Kojin, and he was the main kami of worship for every community in the old days. Prior to 1945 there was just a wayside shrine here set in a grove of trees. The trees were cut down and sold and the money used to build the present shrine. Every 6 years until 1966, Omoto Kagura (dance) was performed here. My friends recently deceased grandfather danced here and 5 times became possesed by Omotojin, the most times for one person in living memory. Shamanic kagura was widespread in Japan until the Meiji era. This area of Iwami is the only place in Japan where it is still practised." Iwami is maybe 60 km west of Izumo near Nima on the north coast.

Since Izumo and Iwami are northeast of Kyushu, and northwest of Nara, or Yamato, one might think Yamataikoku/Yamato was in Kyushu, and that Ushitora no Konjin (northeastern powerful spirit), an ancient Izumo god, was originally identified by a culture of Kyushu.

My doubts were related to the thought that Konjin was a lying-spirit pretending to be the very creator; a common occurrence in the lower spirit realms according to Oahspe. These spirits can found large heavenly kingdoms, if they have sufficient wisdom and cunning. In the local regions on the earth below, cultural movements professing the false angel/god’s claims (usually to do with his/her alleged attributes and exaggerated claims about creation) may arise, which might evolve into a fully fledged religion with martyrs, priests and followers.
Well, in this world full of creative potential and expression, there is scope for a little of this within the limits of one’s possibilities. The search is, in part, for who we really are within, after all; and the creator is conceived of as infinite and boundless; All-possibility. But I heed Oahspe when it exposes angel entities claiming to be the creator, yet who originate in circumstances which are the same as ours (ie, born of woman). No matter how established a religion may be, we need not be subservient to a false authority when it comes to worship and ritual. We are indebted to the founding fathers of the American revolution who assured us forever more of our religious freedom.

In a land where the highest national scripture conveys a Japanese pantheon of contesting worshipable gods, shamans and heroes, known by sometimes questionable moral behaviour [most scriptures, worldwide, include an element of this, more or less], it was understandable to think that Kuni-toko-tachi no Mikoto could be thought of as Ushitora no Konjin (a powerful northeastern Spirit), and that somehow he was the personification of Daigenrai, the Great Original Spirit.
I asked Masamichi Tanaka about Yamakage and the kami of the three-fold whirl, namely Amenominakanushi no kami, Kamimusubi no kami and Takamimusubi no kami. There was a tone of respect for Yamakage, as I also found at Izumo. I now know that Omoto and Yamakage largely have the same beliefs.

Yamakage says Daigenrai is given the name Amenominakanushi no kami. Deguchi teaches that the Supreme Deity (the Great Original Deity of the Universe) is called Ame-no-mi-naka-nushi-no-oh-kami or Oh-kunitokotachi-no-ohokami (The Universe-Eternally-Standing-Great-Deity). Hence Kuni-toko-tachi could be thought of as the primordial creator, even Daigenrai, the Great Spirit. Deguchi uses the word "Deity" in preference to "Spirit". This would not be my choice, since Oahspe traces the term "Deity" back to Deus, Dyaus, Zeus etc; a separate head god of a particular heavenly region. If Daigenrai is meant to be everpresent and omnipresent, as Oahspe intends by the term "Great Spirit", a local "Deity" would not suffice.
But Kuni-toko-tachi is also being equated with Konjin, an itinerant kami from Onmyodo (a traditional Japanese cosmology and system of divination based on the Taoist philosophies of Wu Xing [Five Elements] and Yin and yang). He is associated with compass directions, and said to change position with time. Konjin's momentary location is considered an unlucky direction, because this Kami is particularly violent and said to punish through curses. Konjin was said to be at tremendous power when residing as "Kimon Konjin" (Konjin of the Demon's Gate") at the two "demon's gates" (the northeast "front" gate called omote-kimon and the southwest "back" gate called ura kimon).

After an amiable discussion with Masamichi Tanaka for an hour or two I had to rush on.

The Oomoto history begins late in the Edo period (1859), when Konko Daijin (also known as Akazawa Bunji, or Bunjiro Kawate, 1814-1883) founded a new religion called Konkokyo which was based on the Konjin cult. His family suffered a series of accidental deaths, and he feared that the deaths were the work of the evil spirit Konjin. Bunjiro himself suffered a severe illness in 1855, but while receiving magico-religious healing rituals, he experienced the sensation of divine healing, a religious experience that deepened his faith. Bunjiro's brother became a Konjin-cult medium and faith healer in 1857. While now understanding the reasons for the Konjin deity's violence, Bunjiro also experienced the deity's compassion and began expounding on that theme. In response to a revelation from Konjin, Bunjiro gave up farming and devoted himself to proselytizing in 1859. He stated that Konjin was not an evil kami but the deity Tenchikane no Kami, the "world's parent kami and savior of humankind." After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, religious policies of the new government temporarily placed limits on the movement's proselytizing activities. In his later years he compiled the Oshirasegoto oboecho (Record of Revelations).
Konkokyo is a syncretic, henotheistic and panentheistic religion, which worships God under the name of Tenchi Kane No Kami, the Golden God of Heaven and Earth, the Parent God. Everything is seen as being in profound interrelation with each other. God is not seen as distant or residing in heaven, but present within this world. The universe is perceived to be the body of the Parent God. Suffering is seen as being caused by individual disregard of the relationship between all things. Konkokyo's beliefs center around the betterment of human life in this world by gratitude, apologising, mutual help and prayer. In this way, everybody can join their hearts with God to become Ikigami, a living God. It is believed that after death, all beings return to God. The spirits of the deceased do not pass on to a heaven or a hell, but remain in this world, in unity with Tenchi Kane No Kami.

Deguchi Nao, of Ayabe, declared that she had a "spirit dream" at the lunar New Year in 1892, becoming possessed (kamigakari) by Ushitora no Konjin and starting to transmit his words. After 1895, and with a growing quantity of followers, she became a teacher of the Konkokyo religion. In 1898 she met Ueda Kisaburo who had previous studies in kamigakari (spirit possession) and in 1899 they established the Kinmeikai which became the Kinmei Reigakkai later in the same year. In 1900 Kisaburo married Nao’s fifth daughter Sumi and adopted the name Deguchi Onisaburo. Omoto was thus established based on Nao's automatic writings (Ofudesaki) and Onisaburo’s spiritual techniques.

The Prophecies of Onisaburo Deguchi regarding a sunken continent
Date of Fulfillment
In 1995 the Okinawa Times (dated Jan. 1) reported that what looked like the ancient megalithic ruins were found lying in the seabed near Japan's most western Isle of Yonaguni, one of the Yaeyama Islands. They are expected to be the remains of Sawara, the capital of the sunken Island of Kyu.

Date of Dictation: July 1922

Description of Prophecy
Origins of the Ryukyu Islands
The Okinawa Island, the largest of the Ryukyu Islands, is a tenth portion of what used to be a large but sunken island 300,000 years ago. The Reikai Monogatari calls this island Ryu-no-shima ("Island of Ryu"), and it and its pair, Kyu-no-shima ("Island of Kyu") constitute the ancient Ryukyus.
The Island of Kyu corresponds to the Yaeyama Islands.
The castle in Sawara, the capital of Kyu, had a megalithic structure inside its surrounding 119 yard wide moat.
The faith in Maitreya (Japanese: Miroku) lives on until today on Yaeyama Islands in the forms of the Maitreya dance and the Maitreya melody.
Koto-yori-wake ("Logos-Reliance-Lord"), head of the holy place of Ayabe, who visits the Islands of Ryu and Kyu at the command of Kamu-susa-no-wo and Kuni-toko-tachi, reveals that on the islands are Ryu-no-tama ("Jewel of Ryu") and Kyu-no-tama ("Jewel of Kyu"), that the former is shiho-mitsu-no-tama ("tide-flowing jewel") and the latter, shiho-hiru-no-tama ("tide-ebbing jewel"), and that with these two jewels, one can make whatever devil succumb.

Date of Dictation: Feb. 1922

Description of Prophecy
A model of the submersion of the Continent of Mu.
To have the prediluvian world in the palm of their hands, Oh-kuni-hiko and his wife-deity falsely proclaim themselves as Hinode-no-kami ("Sunrise-Deity") and Izana-mi-no-mikoto ("Her Augustness the Female-Who-Invites"), respectively.
One day, the Oh-kuni-hiko forces wage war against the good deities headed by the genuine Hinode-no-kami on the Island of Yomotsu ("Hades") in the Pacific, which Onisaburo equates with the continent of Mu. (Onisaburo says that Mu is about 6,588 miles in length and 7,564 miles in width.
The devils suffer a total defeat in the "Great Mountain Pass of the World (= Armageddon)," resulting in the sinking of Mu into the sea.

See also http://www2.plala.or.jp/wani-san/teaching.html for more of Onisaburo's teachings and poems.

Conclusion

Links

The Vision
Sam'tu, the sign of Triangle
Music Album
Poetry
Galactic Alignment
Plasma Kosmology
Holographic Paradigm

Zarathushtrians and Hinduism
Faithists of Hapta
Identifying Pan, the Submerged Continent
The Sacred Kosmon Year
'Progress of Things' Versus 'Evolution'