Minatogawa Shrine; The historic place of the Japanese spirit

The brave Blossoms, the Japanese national rugby team, showed their fighting spirit in The Rugby World Cup in Japan last year. During the cup a former foreign national rugby player inspired the team members with the word of the Japanese spirit, called “yamato damashii” in Japanese. He said that the Japanese spirit was to work hard and the spirituality of devoting yourself to the team and teammates. He has been in Japan for a long time and he learned the Japanese spirit from his rugby experiences in Japan. And he thinks it is nowhere outside of Japan and it is excellent. Eventually, many people think the Japanese spirit is the fighting spirit, however, you may be surprised to know that the true Japanese spirit includes a kind and peaceful spirit. The Japanese spirit has two sides, one is the brave side and the other is the peaceful side.
The Genji Story, which is the oldest love story in the world, was written by a female novelist. She wrote about the importance of the Japanese spirit in a scene of an educational guide to a royal child. At that time it was absolutely necessary for high-crass members to study the Chinese language, yet she highlighted to be with nature and study Japanese poems, moreover to make the Japanese spirit. High-class members thought that the Japanese spirit was first and the Chinese language was second.
The true Japanese spirit contains both a fighting spirit and a kind spirit. Totally, to become one with a team ,to become one with the public, to become one with nature, to become one with a deity or to become one with a god in heaven is the Japanese spirit. But yet, the fighting Japanese spirit is well known popularly.

Spreading the word of the Japanese spirit over Japan
About one a half centuries ago the explosions of canons of the American squadron with Perry opened the closed Japan and became the signal starting the Meiji Restoration. Contrarily, the person who made the spiritual back-bone of the Meiji Restoration was Shoin Yoshida. He tried to ride on a ship of the squadron by himself but failed. He seemed reckless, but just itself was one appearance of the Japanese spirit for him. After that he made a poem as follows;
“If I did that, I had to accept the failure
Nonetheless, beyond my control
The Japanese spirit ordered me”
Shoin taught young samurais about the Japanese spirit as follows;
“Your body is private but your kokoro, that is similar to both soul and heart in English, is public. A person, who confirms to the public with unwritten rules of being for a social purpose making use of his private body, is a big man, on the contrary, a person who confirms to his personal purpose for rubbing from the society.”
In short, he was executed by the Tokugawa Bakufu, but before the execution he made this last poet as follows;
“Even if my body decayed at a poor field of Musashino
Remember the Japanese spirit of mine is alive”
On top of that, Shoin told his disciples about the samurai who had the greatest Japanese spirit in Japanese history, he was Masashige Kusunoki.

Masashige Kusunoki
Masashige Kusunoki was the leader of a samurai corps and he had high tactical ability in battle. When the then emperor uprised against the Kamakura Bakufu of samurai in 1332, Masashige participated on the Imperial court side. For him the public was the emperor. When he came in front of the emperor, the emperor gave him an emblem with a chrysanthemum and water. The chrysanthemum is the symbol of the emperor.
His corps was much smaller than the Bakufu, but he confused the Bakufu making full use of his tactics. Finally the Bakufu fell to the ground in 1333.
Nonetheless, a new big enemy was marching to Kyoto from the west, against the force Masashige recommended the imperial court escape from Kyoto. However, the court members who had only pride but no strategy ridiculed him because his proposal was beyond their pride, and they ordered him to do battle with the enemy.
Masashige believed he would lose but he and his corps marched to Minatogawa, Kobe. For him it was natural to obey the emperor, it was the appearance of his Japanese spirit. His corps fought well, finally he lost the battle and he and his brother killed each other.



Minatogawa Shrine
Minatogawa Shrine was built as soon as The Meiji government was established. Many of the members of the government were disciples of Shoin Yoshida and they respected Masashige.
The atmosphere of the shrine is always clear. The air seems to be similar to the spirit of Masashige, the Japanese spirit.
As mentioned above, the Japanese spirit is to confirm to the unwritten rules of the public and it includes peace. And the public is often nature, often a deity or often a god in heaven. If you think the public is nature or the world, you will able to sympathize you with them on the global environmental problem. If you think the public is a deity, the event confirming to a deity is a Japanese festival. You love them, don’t you?


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