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130-532: Suwa Grand Shrine ( Japanese : 諏訪大社 , Hepburn : Suwa-taisha ) , historically also known as Suwa Shrine (諏訪神社 Suwa-jinja ) or Suwa Daimyōjin ( 諏訪大明神 ) , is a group of Shinto shrines in Nagano Prefecture , Japan. The shrine complex is the ichinomiya of former Shinano Province and is considered to be one of the oldest shrines in existence, being implied by the Nihon Shoki to already stand in

260-458: A honden , the building where the deity is enshrined in many Shinto shrines. Unlike them, however, the Honmiya 's hōden are located to the side of the hei-haiden rather than directly behind it. Unlike today, there were originally far fewer buildings in the Honmiya 's precincts. Medieval records indicate that the shrine's most sacred area where the heihaiden now stands originally only contained

390-562: A water and/or wind deity during the late 7th century, on par with the wind gods of Tatsuta Shrine in Yamato Province (modern Nara Prefecture ). Fune Kofun , a burial mound dating from the early 5th century discovered near the Kamisha Honmiya in 1959, yielded a number of important artifacts, among them weapons and implements of a ritual nature such as two dakōken ( 蛇行剣 , a wave-bladed ceremonial sword). The tomb's location and

520-624: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down

650-526: A cadet branch of the clan. Now declared an enemy of the imperial throne, Yoritsugu went into hiding. It is believed that the story of Kōga Saburō , which portrays Suwa Myōjin as a warrior hero and a hunter, originated in the aftermath of the shogunate's collapse and the Suwa Ōhōri 's status becoming diminished as a result. Whereas formerly, the Suwa clan relied on the doctrine of the Upper Shrine's high priest being

780-589: A complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )

910-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )

1040-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as

1170-406: A god in the flesh to exert authority over its warrior devotees ( Minamoto no Yoritomo in 1186 reprimanded subordinates for not obeying the Ōhōri , declaring that his words are those of the god of Suwa himself), with the loss of official backing the Suwa shrine network became decentralized. Warriors who were devoted to the Suwa cult sought for stories ( setsuwa ) about the deity that did not involve

1300-588: A kind of ancestral shrine to the clan's forebears; it is located nearby Aozuka Kofun , a burial mound notable for being the only keyhole tomb in the Lake Suwa region and which may have been the grave of a Kanasashi clan member. The Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku mentions a Kanasashi, Sadanaga (貞長), receiving the kabane Ōason (大朝臣) in the year 863. A genealogy of the Lower Shrine's high priestly line records an elder brother of his, Masanaga (正長), who in addition to being

1430-479: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it

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1560-503: A medieval Buddhist legend, this god is identified as a king from India whose feats included quelling a rebellion in his kingdom and defeating a dragon in Persia before manifesting in Japan as a native kami . In another medieval folk story, the god is said to have originally been a warrior named Kōga Saburō who returned from a journey into the underworld only to find himself transformed into

1690-444: A more direct bond to a kami . Ōmiwa Shrine in Nara , for example, contains no sacred images or objects because it is believed to serve the mountain on which it stands ( Mount Miwa ). For the same reason, it has a haiden ( 拝殿 , worship hall ) , but no honden . In this sense, it is a model of what the first Shinto shrines were like. Another important shrine without a honden

1820-460: A pseudepigraphical work of later provenance) states that the Upper Shrine "worships a mountain as its shintai " (以山為神体而拝之矣), it does not specifically identify this mountain to be Mount Moriya; indeed no source identifies Mount Moriya as the Upper Shrine's focus of worship before the Meiji period , when this identification first appeared and began to circulate. As noted above, the shrine's young high priest,

1950-424: A rock (磐座 iwakura ) serving as the dwelling place of the shrine's deity, which was demarcated by a torii gate and a fence (格子 kakusu ). These texts describe the Honmiya 's terrain as being made up of three levels or 'platforms' (壇 dan ): the sanctum containing the iwakura (corresponding to the heihaiden and its vicinity) was the 'upper platform' (上壇 jōdan ), with the spot where the two hōden stand being

2080-562: A rock deep within the inner sanctum, over which the Tettō was erected. The Maemiya (前宮 'former shrine'), as its name implies, is believed to be the oldest site in the Upper Shrine complex and the center of its religious rites. Originally one of the chief auxiliary shrines of the Upper Shrine complex (see below), the Maemiya was elevated to its current status as one of its two main shrines in 1896 ( Meiji 29). While Yasakatome, Suwa Myōjin's consort,

2210-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),

2340-479: A serpent or dragon. A fourth myth portrays the Suwa deity appointing an eight-year-old boy to become his priest and physical 'body' ; the boy eventually became the founder of the Upper Shrine's high priestly lineage. Both Takeminakata and Yasakatome are now worshiped together in the Upper and Lower Shrines, with the god Kotoshironushi (another son of Ōkuninushi and Takeminakata's brother) being enshrined alongside them in

2470-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate

2600-533: A single institution, Suwa Shrine (諏訪神社 Suwa-jinja ), and received the rank of kokuhei-chūsha (国幣中社), before being promoted to Kanpei Chūsha (官幣中社) in 1896 and finally, to the highest rank of kanpei-taisha (官幣大社) in 1916. After World War II , the shrine was listed as a special-class shrine (別表神社 beppyō-jinja ) by the Association of Shinto Shrines and renamed Suwa Grand Shrine ( Suwa-taisha ) in 1948. The Upper Shrine's 'main shrine' (本宮 honmiya ), located in

2730-425: Is Suwa Taisha , head of the Suwa shrine network. The honden's structure determines the shrine's architectural style. Many exist, but three ( taisha-zukuri , shinmei-zukuri and sumiyoshi-zukuri ) are of particular importance because they are the only ones believed to predate the arrival of Buddhism , and have therefore a special architectural and historical significance. They are exemplified respectively by

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2860-624: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of

2990-421: Is already conceived of as a goddess in the 9th century. As Takeminakata, the Upper Shrine's god, rose up in rank, so did Yasakatome, so that by 867 CE, the goddess had been promoted to senior second rank (正二位). By the late Heian period, Suwa became considered as Shinano Province's chief shrine or ichinomiya . with literary mentions attesting to its status. The 'Register of Deities' (神名帳 Jinmyōchō ) section of

3120-565: Is also often popularly referred to as 'Suwa Myōjin ' (諏訪明神), 'Suwa Daimyōjin' (諏訪大明神), or 'Suwa-no-Ōkami' (諏訪大神, 'Great Kami of Suwa'). The goddess of the Lower Shrine, held to be Takeminakata's consort, is given the name Yasakatome in these texts. While both the Kojiki (ca. 712 CE) and the Sendai Kuji Hongi (807-936 CE) portray Takeminakata as a son of Ōkuninushi , the god of Izumo Province , who fled to Suwa after his shameful defeat in

3250-445: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,

3380-519: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing

3510-643: Is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics , a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has

3640-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number

3770-684: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider

3900-462: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto

4030-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to

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4160-417: Is currently identified as this shrine's deity (with popular legend claiming that the burial mounds of Takeminakata and Yasakatome are to be found in this shrine), some historians believe - based on medieval records - that the local fertility and agriculture god(s) known as Mishaguji , who occupy a prominent role in certain religious rituals of the Upper Shrine, was originally worshiped in this shrine. During

4290-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through

4420-512: Is itself an important part of the shrine's life. Inside the honden is kept the go-shintai ( 御神体 ) , literally, "the sacred body of the kami". The go-shintai is actually not divine, but just a temporary repository of the enshrined kami . Important as it is, the honden may sometimes be completely absent, as for example when the shrine stands on a sacred mountain to which it is dedicated, or when there are nearby himorogi (enclosure) or other yorishiro (substitute object) that serve as

4550-460: Is known as the Namiyoke (波除 'Wave-Repelling') Torii . The shrine is now located approximately 5.2 kilometers (3.23 miles) away from the lake's shores. Some authors have put forward an explanation for the differing orientations of the hōden and the hei-haiden by suggesting that the hōden were built to face Mount Moriya, located southwest of the shrine, and a stone called 'Suzuri-ishi' (硯石), which

4680-500: Is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and

4810-722: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey

4940-423: Is locally revered as a sacred mountain, associated with either the god Moriya who figures in one of the Upper Shrine's foundation myths or the infamous 6th century courtier Mononobe no Moriya (worshiped as a deity both at the mountain's peak and at a shrine on the mountain's opposite side), historical records connecting it to the Upper Shrine are scanty. While a document purportedly dating from 1553 (but which may be

5070-589: Is located beside the Togawa River , which flows from the Yashimagahara Wetlands northwest of Kirigamine Plateau , where Moto-Misayama (旧御射山), the former sacred hunting grounds of the Lower Shrine, is situated. The Lower Shrine is also associated with a clan known as the Kanasashi (金刺, also read as 'Kanesashi' or 'Kanazashi'), the offshoot of a local magnate clan ( kuni no miyatsuko ) which eventually became

5200-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of

5330-533: Is often identified with the iwakura mentioned in medieval texts. They suggest that with the construction of the hei-haiden , the shrine's focus of worship changed from the Suzuri-ishi and the mountain beyond it to the stone pagoda (the Tettō ) formerly located in the forested inner sanctum behind the hei-haiden and the Buddhist temple to Samantabhadra ( Fugen-dō ) to the shrine's southeast. However, while Mount Moriya

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5460-489: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and

5590-420: Is said to have prayed at the Upper Shrine for victory, vowing to donate a horse and a set of armor should he defeat Yoritsugu. His making Yorishige's son the nominal head of his troops is also believed to be a way to invoke the aid of the Suwa deity. Apart from this, there are other recorded instances of Shingen praying to the god to assist him in his campaigns. From 1565 onwards, Shingen (who by now had conquered

5720-405: Is that very little documentation for the Lower Shrine has been preserved; almost all extant historical and ritual documents regarding Suwa Shrine extant today are those of the Upper Shrine. The Upper and Lower Shrines of Suwa were historically associated with a male and female kami , respectively. The god of the Upper Shrine, named Takeminakata in the imperially-commissioned official histories ,

5850-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and

5980-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have

6110-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns

6240-576: The Engishiki (927 CE) lists the 'Minakatatomi Shrines' (南方刀美神社) as the two major ('eminent') shrines of Suwa district. 'Suwa Shrine of Shinano' is mentioned briefly in Minamoto no Tsuneyori (976/985-1039) diary, the Sakeiki ( 左経記 ) as the representative shrine for Shinano Province when Emperor Go-Ichijō sent an envoy to shrines in every province in the country in 1017 CE. It was probably around this time that

6370-525: The haiden , or oratory . The haiden is often connected to the honden by a heiden , or hall of offerings. Physically, the honden is the heart of the shrine complex, connected to the rest of the shrine but usually raised above it, and protected from public access by a fence called tamagaki . It usually is relatively small and with a gabled roof. Its doors are usually kept closed, except at religious festivals . Shinto priests themselves enter only to perform rituals. The rite of opening those doors

6500-463: The honden ( 本殿 , main hall ) , also called shinden ( 神殿 ) , or sometimes shōden ( 昇殿 ) as in Ise Shrine 's case, is the most sacred building at a Shinto shrine, intended purely for the use of the enshrined kami , usually symbolized by a mirror or sometimes by a statue. The building is normally in the rear of the shrine and closed to the general public. In front of it usually stands

6630-510: The Akimiya . The origins of the Upper and Lower Shrines of Suwa are shrouded in mystery. The Nihon Shoki (720 CE) refers to envoys sent to worship "the wind-gods of Tatsuta and the gods of Suwa and Minochi in Shinano [Province] " during the fifth year of the reign of Empress Jitō (691 CE), which suggests that a notable kami in Suwa was already being worshiped by the imperial (Yamato) court as

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6760-629: The Hōjō clan . The shrines of Suwa and the priestly clans thereof flourished under the patronage of the Hōjō, which promoted devotion to the god as a sign of loyalty to the shogunate. The religious festivals of the Upper and Lower Shrines attracted many of the samurai caste as well as other social classes, both from within Shinano and outside. The Hōjō appointed local land managers ( jitō ) and retainers, who were sometimes Hōjō family members, as sponsors (御頭 otō or ontō ) of

6890-505: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in

7020-504: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than

7150-716: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of

7280-794: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to

7410-549: The kami of Suwa began to be conceived of as a warrior deity. A famous legend relates that the Suwa deity appeared to the 8th century general Sakanoue no Tamuramaro during his campaign to subjugate the Emishi of northeastern Japan; in thanksgiving for the god's assistance, Tamuramaro was said to have petitioned the court for the institution of the shrine's religious festivals. The Ryōjin Hishō , an anthology of songs compiled in 1179, names

7540-487: The Ōhori , due to being considered as the god of Suwa incarnate , was more commonly identified as the shrine's object of worship during the medieval period. An alternative theory posits that the Upper Shrine's closest analogue to a holy mountain is actually the Yatsugatake mountain range to the shrine's southeast. This theory interprets the hei-haiden as being oriented towards the Upper Shrine's hunting grounds located at

7670-477: The Ōhōri or the Suwa clan, leading to the rise of localized setsuwa such as the Kōga Saburō legend. Suwa (or Kosaka) Enchū, government official and member of a cadet branch of the Suwa, took it upon himself to revive the former status of Suwa Shrine. To this end, he commissioned a set of ten illustrated scrolls (later expanded to twelve) showcasing the shrine's history and its various religious ceremonies, which

7800-463: The 'middle platform' (中壇 chūdan ). The 'lower platform' (下壇 gedan ) where the Kagura Hall now stands was where religious rites were originally conducted. In antiquity, the water level of Lake Suwa was five to six meters higher than it currently is; the lake thus originally came up near the Honmiya before it shrunk into its present size. Indeed, the wooden torii gate at the shrine's northwest end

7930-518: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),

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8060-482: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,

8190-632: The Kanasashi chose to side with the Northern Court . This and other reasons contributed to the state of war between the two families, as well as other clans allied with them, during the Muromachi and Sengoku periods . During a battle between the two factions in 1483, the Lower Shrines were burned down by the Upper Shrine's forces; its high priest, Kanasashi Okiharu (金刺興春), was killed in battle. In 1535, Takeda Nobutora of Kai Province , who fought against

8320-481: The Lower Shrine as an auxiliary deity. Like others among Japan's oldest shrines, three of Suwa Shrine's four main sites - the Kamisha Honmiya and the two main shrines of the Shimosha - do not have a honden , the building that normally enshrines a shrine's kami . Instead, the Upper Shrine's objects of worship were the sacred mountain behind the Kamisha Honmiya , a sacred rock (磐座 iwakura ) upon which Suwa Myōjin

8450-626: The Middle Ages, the area around the Maemiya was known as the Gōbara (神原), the 'Field of the Deity', as it was both the residence of the Upper Shrine's Ōhōri and the site of many important rituals. The Ōhōri 's original residence in the Gōbara , the Gōdono (神殿), also functioned as the political center of the region, with a small town ( monzen-machi ) developing around it. The Gōdono was eventually abandoned after

8580-494: The Middle Ages. 'Takeminakata', the name by which the deity of the Upper Shrine is more commonly known to the imperial court, appears in the historical record for the first time in the Kojiki 's (711-712 CE) kuni-yuzuri myth cycle. Although the work associates Takeminakata with the province of Izumo and its deity Ōkuninushi , references to such a deity are curiously absent from the Nihon Shoki or other sources dealing with

8710-724: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently

8840-488: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand

8970-562: The Suwa Upper and Lower Southern Shrines'), as well as his iconic helmet, the Suwa Hosshō helmet (諏訪法性兜). In 1582, the eldest son of Oda Nobunaga , Nobutada , led an army into Takeda -controlled Shinano and burned the Upper Shrine to the ground. The shrine was subsequently rebuilt two years later. During the Edo period , both shrines were recognized and supported by the Tokugawa shogunate and

9100-489: The Suwa and other clans who remained loyal to the Hōjō, led by Tokiyuki, instigated an unsuccessful armed rebellion with the intention of reestablishing the Kamakura shogunate, which ended with the defeat of Tokiyuki's forces and Yorishige, Tokitsugu and some others committing suicide. Tokitsugu's son who inherited the priesthood, Yoritsugu (頼継), was stripped from his position and replaced by Fujisawa Masayori (藤沢政頼), who hailed from

9230-499: The Suwa clan a number of times, had a truce with clan leader Suwa Yorishige and sent his daughter Nene off to him as his wife. His clan, the Takeda , were already known to be devotees of the Suwa deity since the 12th century, when in 1140, Takeda Nobuyoshi donated lands to each of the two shrines of Suwa in thanksgiving for his defeat of the Taira . By marrying his daughter to Yorishige, Nobutora

9360-531: The Upper Shrine's objects of worship. As Buddhist ethics, which opposed the taking of life and Mahayana 's strict views on vegetarianism somewhat conflicted with Suwa Myōjin's status as a god of hunting, the Suwa cult devised elaborate theories that legitimized the hunting, eating, and sacrifice of animals such as deer (a beast sacred to the god) within a Buddhist framework. The shrines produced special talismans (鹿食免 kajikimen "permit to eat venison ") and chopsticks (鹿食箸 kajikibashi ) that were held to allow

9490-507: The Yatsugatake's foothills in what is now the town of Fujimi . As for the iwakura , there seems to be evidence based on old maps and illustrations of the Honmiya compound that the Suzuri-ishi was originally situated elsewhere before it was moved to its current location, making its identification with the sacred rock found in ancient records doubtful. An alternative theory proposes that the iwakura spoken of in these texts actually refers to

9620-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which

9750-482: The area was deemed to have become ritually polluted in the aftermath of the intraclan conflict among the Suwa clan which resulted in the death of Ōhōri Suwa Yorimitsu ( 諏訪頼満 ) in 1483. In 1601, the Ōhōri 's place of residence was moved from the Maemiya to Miyatado (宮田渡) in modern Suwa City . With the Ōhōri having moved elsewhere, the Gōbara fell into decline during the Edo period as locals began to build houses in

9880-512: The bearer to eat meat. The prominence of hunting in the shrine's religious rites undoubtedly caught the attention of the samurai class. Devotion to the deity of Suwa (especially as god of war) became more widespread thanks in part to the rise of the Upper Shrine's high priestly family - now calling themselves the Jin/Miwa (神) or the Suwa (諏訪) - as vassals ( gokenin ) of the Kamakura shogunate and

10010-411: The cities of Chino and Suwa , while the Lower Shrine is on the northern side of the lake, in the town of Shimosuwa . In addition to these four main shrines, some sixty other auxiliary shrines scattered throughout the Lake Suwa area (ranging from miniature stone structures to medium to large sized edifices and compounds) are also part of the shrine complex. These are the focus of certain rituals in

10140-523: The close connections between the warrior families of the Suwa region and the Hōjō is the fact that many members of the Suwa clan present in Kamakura during the siege of the city in 1333 committed suicide alongside Hōjō Takatoki . Takatoki's son, the young Tokiyuki , sought refuge in Shinano with Suwa Yorishige (諏訪頼重, not to be confused with the Sengoku period daimyō of the same name ) and his son and then- Ōhōri , Tokitsugu (時継). In July–August 1335,

10270-468: The court, and the Sendai Kuji Hongi , commonly dated to the 9th-10th century, which explicitly refers to Takeminakata as being enshrined in "Suwa Shrine in the district of Suwa in Shinano Province" (信濃国諏方郡諏方神社). The national histories record Takeminakata's exceptionally rapid rise in importance: from rankless (无位), the imperial court steadily promoted the deity to increasingly higher ranks within

10400-473: The district governor (大領 dairyō ) of Hanishina District , also held the title of Megamihōri (売神祝) or 'priest of the goddess'. The same title appears in a seal in the Lower Shrine's possession (designed as an Important Cultural Property in 1934) traditionally said to have been bequeathed by the Emperor Heizei (reigned 806-809). This shows that the shrine's deity - named 'Yasakatome' in imperial records -

10530-455: The downfall of the Takeda. Shingen notably did not give his son the character traditionally used in Takeda names, 信 ( nobu ), but instead the character 頼 ( yori ) used for the names of Suwa clan members, apparently as a sign of Katsuyori being the intended heir to the Suwa legacy and of Shingen's desire to place the land of Suwa and its shrines under Takeda control. After Yorishige's downfall, Suwa

10660-463: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there

10790-404: The festivals, which helped provide financial support for the shrines. To offset the burden of this service, these sponsors enjoyed a number of benefits such as exemption from certain provincial taxes and the right to be pardoned for crimes during their year of service as otō . Around this time, Suwa branch shrines became numerous all across Japan, especially in territories held by clans devoted to

10920-423: The first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of the standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese

11050-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had

11180-585: The god (for instance, the Kantō region , traditional stronghold of the Minamoto ( Seiwa Genji ) clan). A number of factors were instrumental for this spread of the Suwa Myōjin cult. First, warriors from Shinano Province who were rewarded lands in the western provinces by the shogunate in the aftermath of the Jōkyū War of 1221 took the Suwa cult with them. Second, the shogunate appointed major non-Shinano vassals to manors in

11310-403: The hands of the warrior god Takemikazuchi , who was sent by the gods of heaven to demand that his father relinquish his rule over the terrestrial realm, other myths and legends depict the Suwa deity differently. In one story, for instance, the god of the Upper Shrine is an interloper who conquered the region by defeating various local deities who resisted him such as the god Moriya (Moreya). In

11440-453: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system

11570-449: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of

11700-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,

11830-493: The late 6th/early 7th centuries, with the appearance of burial mounds markedly different from the type exemplified by Fune Kofun heretofore common in the region around this time period being taken as the signs of Yamato expansion into Suwa, though this idea has been called into question in recent years due to the myth's late (medieval) attestation and its similarity to stories concerning the conflict between Prince Shōtoku and Mononobe no Moriya that were in wide circulation during

11960-575: The late 7th century. The entire Suwa shrine complex consists of four main shrines grouped into two sites: the Upper Shrine or Kamisha (上社), comprising the Maemiya ( 前宮 , former shrine) and the Honmiya ( 本宮 , main shrine) , and the Lower Shrine or Shimosha (下社), comprising the Harumiya (春宮, spring shrine) and the Akimiya (秋宮, autumn shrine). The Upper Shrine is located on the south side of Lake Suwa , in

12090-454: The local government, with both being given land grants by the shōgun and the local daimyō. The period saw escalating tensions between the priests and the shrine monks ( shasō ) of the Suwa complex, with increasing attempts from the priesthood to distance themselves from the Buddhist temples. By the end of the Edo period, the priests, deeply influenced by Hirata Atsutane 's nativist , anti-Buddhist teachings, became extremely antagonistic towards

12220-401: The nature of the grave goods suggest that the individuals buried therein were important personages perhaps connected in some way to what would become the Upper Shrine. The presence of the snake-like dakōken and other items made of deer antlers have been connected to the identification of the Upper Shrine's god as a serpent in folk beliefs and the prominence of hunting animals such as deer in

12350-424: The northern foothills of Mount Moriya - currently often identified as the Upper Shrine's go-shintai - boasts the largest number of historical buildings and structures of the four shrines, a number of which have been designated as Important Cultural Properties . Similar to the two shrines of the Lower Shrine, the Honmiya possesses two thatched-roof wooden edifices called hōden (宝殿 'treasure hall') in place of

12480-595: The only country where it is the national language , and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little

12610-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by

12740-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with

12870-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,

13000-456: The precincts and convert much of it into rice fields ; even the shrine priests who still lived nearby used the land for rice farming to support themselves. Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] ) is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people . It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan ,

13130-519: The precincts of both shrines, such as a sanctuary to Samantabhadra known as the Fugen-dō (普賢堂) and a stone pagoda symbolizing the legendary iron tower in India where, according to Shingon tradition, Nagarjuna was said to have received esoteric teachings from Vajrasattva (considered to be an aspect of Samantabhadra) called the Tettō (鉄塔 "iron tower"). For a long time, these two structures were considered as

13260-515: The primary targets for the edict of separation, which took effect swiftly and thoroughly. The shrine monks were laicized and Buddhist symbols either removed from the complex or destroyed; the shrines' Buddhist rites, such as the yearly offering of a copy of the Lotus Sutra to the Upper Shrine's deity, were discontinued. The now laicized monks at first tried to continue serving at the shrines as Shinto priests; however, due to continued discrimination from

13390-477: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as

13520-537: The province, who then acted as sponsors and participants in the shrine rituals, eventually installing the cult in their native areas. A third factor was the exemption granted to the shrines of Suwa from the ban on falconry ( takagari ) - a favorite sport of the upper classes - imposed by the shogunate in 1212, due to the importance of hunting in its rites. As a loophole to this ban, the gokenin built Suwa branch shrines in their own provinces where 'Suwa style' falconry could be performed, ostensibly to collect offerings for

13650-552: The province. Takeminakata is thus believed by a number of scholars to have been interpolated by the Kojiki 's compilers into a myth which did not originally feature him. The earliest surviving literary references to a shrine in Suwa dedicated to Takeminakata are in the Shinshō Kyakuchoku Fushō ( 新抄格勅符抄 'New Extracts from Decrees and Edicts', 806 CE), which speaks of "Takeminakatatomi-no-Mikoto-no-Kami" being given land grants by

13780-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning

13910-443: The shrine of Suwa among famous shrines to martial deities in the eastern half of the country. As Buddhism began to penetrate Suwa and syncretize with local beliefs , the deities of the Upper and Lower Shrines came to be identified with the bodhisattvas Samantabhadra (Fugen) and Avalokiteśvara (Kannon), respectively. Buddhist temples and other edifices (most of which belonged to the esoteric Shingon school ) were erected on

14040-452: The shrine priesthood, they gave up and left. The priests themselves were soon ousted from their offices as the state abolished hereditary succession among Shinto priests and private ownership of shrines across the country; the Ōhōri - now stripped of his divine status - as well as the other local priestly houses were replaced by government-appointed priests. In 1871, the Upper and Lower Shrines - now under government control - were merged into

14170-510: The shrine temples and their monks. In 1864 and 1867, Buddhist structures in the Lower Shrine were set on fire by unknown perpetrators; in the latter case, it was rumored to have been caused by the shrine's priests. The establishment of State Shinto after the Meiji Restoration in 1868 brought an end to the union between Shinto and Buddhism. The shrines of Suwa, due to their prominent status as ichinomiya of Shinano, were chosen as one of

14300-493: The shrine's high priests. The Kanasashi are thought to have been originally district magistrates (郡領 gunryō ) in charge of producing and collecting taxed goods and laborers to be sent to the central government in Yamato Province . Their seat of power seems to have been located near what is now the Lower Shrine, which was close to the important crossroads that led to the capital. Indeed, the Shimosha Akimiya may have started as

14430-404: The shrine's religious calendar. Historically, the Upper and the Lower Shrines have been two separate entities, each with its own set of shrines and religious ceremonies. The existence of two main sites, each one having a system parallel to but completely different from the other, complicates a study of the Suwa belief system as a whole. One circumstance that simplifies the matter somewhat, however,

14560-512: The shrine's rituals. Local historians have seen the legend that speaks of the Upper Shrine's deity as an intruding conqueror who wrested control of the Lake Suwa region from the native god Moriya (Moreya) to reflect the subjugation of local clans who controlled the area by invaders allied with the Yamato state - identified as the founders of the Upper Shrine's high priestly (大祝 Ōhōri ) house - around

14690-417: The shrine. The Suwa cult was also propagated by wandering preachers (御師 oshi ) who traveled around Shinano and neighboring provinces, preaching stories about the Suwa deity as well as distributing kajikimen and kajikibashi to the populace, collecting offerings and donations in exchange. The shrines suffered a heavy setback at the downfall of the Hōjō and the collapse of the shogunate in 1333. Testifying to

14820-502: The space of twenty-five years, beginning with junior fifth, upper grade (従五位上) in 842 CE. By 867 CE, 'Takeminakatatomi-no-Mikoto' is recorded in the Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku as being elevated to the rank of junior first (従一位). One theory suggests that the cult of the Lower Shrine may have originated from the worship of the kami of the nearby mountains and rivers. The Harumiya , one of the Lower Shrine's two component shrines,

14950-797: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this

15080-476: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This

15210-564: The topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: Kore wa? "(What about) this?"; O-namae wa? ( お名前は？ ) "(What's your) name?". Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, Pan o taberu ( パンを食べる。 ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes Pan o tabenai ( パンを食べない。 ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread". Plain negative forms are i -adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. Pan o tabenakatta ( パンを食べなかった。 ) "I did not eat bread". Honden In Shinto shrine architecture,

15340-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,

15470-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of

15600-413: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It

15730-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending

15860-509: The whole of Shinano Province) issued orders for the revival of religious rituals in the Upper and Lower Shrines which were discontinued due to the chaos of war and lack of financial support, which also helped him both strengthen his control over Shinano and unify the people of the province. Shingen's devotion to the god of Suwa is also evident in some of his war banners, which bore the god's syncretized Buddhist name: Suwa Nangū Hosshō Kamishimo Daimyōjin (諏方南宮法性上下大明神 ' Dharma-Nature Daimyōjin of

15990-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or

16120-535: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular

16250-594: Was completed in 1356. The actual scrolls were later lost, but its text portions were copied and widely circulated, becoming known as the Suwa Daimyōjin Ekotoba . By the 14th century, the high priestly houses of the Upper and Lower Shrines, the Suwa and the Kanasashi were at war with each other and, in the Suwa's case, among themselves. During the Nanboku-chō period , the Suwa supported the Southern Court , while

16380-447: Was divided between the Takeda and their ally, Takatō Yoritsugu (高遠頼継), who coveted the position of high priest. When he did not receive the priestly office, Yoritsugu invaded the other half of the territory that was in Takeda hands. Ensuring that Yoritsugu will not receive support from the former Suwa retainers, Shingen made Yorishige's son the nominal leader of the forces of resistance and retaliated by capturing Yoritsugu's castles. Shingen

16510-718: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,

16640-465: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )

16770-412: Was thought to descend, and the shrine's former high priest or Ōhōri , who was considered to be the physical incarnation of the god himself. This was later joined by Buddhist structures (removed or demolished during the Meiji period ) which were also revered as symbols of the deity. The Lower Shrine, meanwhile, has sacred trees for its go-shintai : a sugi tree in the Harumiya , and a yew tree in

16900-413: Was trying to bring himself closer to the Suwa and thus, ensuring that he would receive the blessings of the god. In 1542, Nobutora's son Shingen invaded Shinano and defeated Yorishige in a series of sieges; two years later Yorishige was forced to commit seppuku . Shingen then took Yorishige's daughter (his niece) to be one of his wives and had a son with her, Katsuyori , who would eventually prove to be

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