Saturday, March 17, 2012

The 7 Lucky Gods around Shikoku


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The Shichifukujin, the 7 lucky gods, are very popular in Japan despite their being mostly "foreign" gods. On my little walk around Shikoku I encountered them at many of the 88 temples, like these small figurines at the mountaintop temple of Tairyuji in Tokushima.

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They are often depicted riding a "takarabune", a treasure boat, together like this at Meitokuji in Kochi.

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Many temples, especially in Ehime, had fairly new and larger collections of their statues like Ryukoji in Ehime.

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The next temple, Butsumokuji, I visited just afew days before New Year and the statues had fresh offerings in front of them in preparation for the large number of visitors expected I would guess.

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This small figurine was at Gokurakuji in Tokushima.

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