Ontake Faith and Ontake Shrine

This blog is from https://satoyamainkiso.blogspot.com/   It is the other blog site I manage.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ontake Faith is one folk religion in Japan. The believers of Ontake Faith regard Ontake Mountain as god, and built Ontake Shrines on the mountains and in another areas around Japan. Every year, the believers from all over the country come to Kiso to climb Mountain Ontake. 

There are Ontake Shrines from the mountain foot to top. Japanese people divide the mountain into ten parts, according to the difficulty of climbing. The easiest part, usually means the mountain foot, is called the first station ("Ichi Goume" in Japanese). While the hardest part, usually means the mountain top, is called the ten station ("Jyu Goume" in Japanese). Ontake Shrine at the first station is called "Satomiya", means the shrine near human's village (in Japanese, human's village is called "sato"). Satomiya is also named "Wakamiya", or "Honsya" in Japanese. 

(The entrance of Satomiya in Otaki Village. This photo is from https://www.instagram.com/zhenglvyun/?hl=ja 8/5/2020)

On the other hand, the shrine at the mountain top is called "Okusya" or "Okumiya". It means the shrine at the depths of mountain (in Japanese, depths is called "Oku").

It was forbidden to climb Ontake Mountain for the common people until 18 century. People thought it would offend Ontake Mountain if the common people enter the mountain. Climbing was just allowed for the believers, who purify themselves by 100 days asceticism. In 1785 and 1792, the ascetic Kakumei and Fukan pioneered the paths up to mountain top from Kurosawa (Kiso Town) and Otaki for the common people. Two ascetics also simplified the asceticism that people need to carry out when they climb Ontake Mountain. After that, the believers of Ontake Faith increased greatly and they established  associations all over the country. These associations are called "kou" in Japanese.