To the north of the medieval Japanese capital of Kyoto, twenty minutes away by a two-car train, similar to a large tram, there is a huge hill overgrown with centuries-old cedars and cryptomeria - Mount Kurama. Everything there seems to correspond to the image of tourist Japan - plaques with pointers to temples and local beauties, a mass of souvenirs, streams of travelers constantly glittering with their digital cameras and iPhones, restaurants lined up in a line. But there is something unusual: in this remote place near the ancient capital, tourists are attracted by the desire to experience the extraordinary energy of the mountain and to visit the long-nosed demons with wings - tengu.
It is known that at the very end of the VIII century, the place for the new capital of Japan - Heian-kyo (now Kyoto) was chosen taking into account the recommendations of the masters of art, known to us as feng shui. There is nothing surprising in this. Recently united into a centralized state, the country of Yamato tried in everything to follow the example of its closest and much more civilized neighbor, China. The Japanese studied Buddhism and metallurgy with equal enthusiasm, adopted the foundations of Taoist yoga and martial arts - adopted, mastered and altered in their own way. The new capital itself, Heian, was built as a smaller copy of the main Chinese city of Chanan, and the Japanese imperial palace copied, on a smaller scale, the palace of the Chinese emperor. Choosing a place for the future Kyoto, Chinese geomancers paid attention to the fact thatthat the beautiful valley of the Kamo River from the north (traditionally the most dangerous direction for the Chinese) is protected from bad energy by the high hill of Kurama. The new capital was built in 794, but, jealous of their uniqueness in history, the Japanese argue that in fact, the realization of Kurama as a mystical protector, the Yamato amulet, has a more ancient origin than the history of Kyoto.
Shinto shrines, and later Buddhist temples of the esoteric schools Tendai and Shingon, appeared on the mountain even before the founding of Heian-kyo and by their very existence strengthened the reputation of this place as mysterious, but vital for the capital. When the city stretched out at its foot, stories about their northern neighbors, the inhabitants of Kurama, became part of the folklore of the townspeople. The main place in these stories was, of course, the legends about tengu.
Tengu - literally "heavenly dogs", people-demons, being a character of Shinto mythology, may also have a Chinese origin, tracing their "ancestry" from the winged "fox-dogs" Tiangou. However, it was in Japan that they became especially popular, penetrating from fairy tales, observations of natural phenomena (at one time the word "tengu" was called a comet) and mystical traditions into the realm of historical legends about real people.
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As is often the case in popular beliefs, the legends about tengu from Mount Kurama, which was immediately and unconditionally recognized as their main fiefdom, bore a double meaning. On the one hand, they were opposed to people, they were dangerous for them and were shunned by humans (just as people shunned the tengu themselves). Demons with huge noses and wings behind their backs were credited with all the worst that could happen in remote mountainous areas and, above all, here - on Mount Kurama. This is how the popular writer Yoshikawa Eiji described it in our time: “People said that the tengu tribe settled in one of the gorges of Mount Kurama, and when at night flashes of lightning through the overhanging clouds illuminated the gorge, this meant that the tengu had a feast.
No man dared to descend into that gorge, for the tengu would have thrown him from the top of the tallest tree or torn to pieces with their beaks. In all the villages around Mount Kurama, many generations of people heard stories about tengu, and no one doubted that demons still lived in the gorge, because they continued to perform the most incredible things: they threw boulders from the slopes of the mountain, threw streams that washed away rice crops stones fell on the surrounding villages like rain. And lately, new stories about their troubles have struck terror in the villagers."
On the other hand, tengu could, at their own will and discretion, help a person by endowing him with supernatural powers and capabilities. The legend of the great Minamoto Yoshitsune (1159-1189), the first major hero of the samurai epic, became a classic example of such interference in the affairs of people. The heir to the powerful Minamoto clan, Yoshitsune was left alive after the defeat of his clan in the fight against another influential samurai clan - Taira, on the condition that he become a priest. However, training at the Mount Kurama Temple has yielded unexpected results. The mentor of Yoshitsune, who was then still the childhood name of Ushivaka, was not a monk, but a warlike tengu named Sojobo, who taught him martial arts at night, giving him extraordinary strength, fantastic - quite in the spirit of modern Chinese fighters - jumping ability,and unsurpassed weapon skill. As a result, Yoshitsune left Mount Kurama to unite the forces of Minamoto, and ultimately defeated the hated Taira. "The Legend of Yoshitsune", written, however, centuries later, says: "In such an enterprise as a mutiny, you cannot do without knowledge of military affairs and without bodily strength and agility. Ushiwaka decided to start with bodily exercise, but there were always a lot of people around Tokobo and nothing worked.and then nothing worked.and then nothing worked.
Meanwhile, in the Kurama mountains, there is a place called the Bishop's Valley. In ancient times, some people, now forgotten, worshiped the bright deity Kibune, who appeared there, the rain giver, glorified by many miracles. There, the ascetics who rejected vanity made pilgrimages, the ringing of prayer bells did not stop there, and since the services there were ruled by zealous priests, they sounded incessantly the tsudzumi drums of the sacred dances of the mikagura, and the voices of the bells, with which the kine priestesses shook, opened people's spiritual eyes. Many miracles appeared there to the world, but then the world came to an end, the saving power of the Buddhas and the miracles of the gods became very little; the temples fell into desolation and became the abode of the terrible tengu, and when the sun was going down, they heard the tearing cries of vengeful spirits. And no one else sought refuge there from the bustle of the world.
Ushivaka, having heard that there was such a place, began to use it. During the day, he pretended to be engaged in science, and at night, without saying a word even to his old, one might say, brothers among the monks, he put on the armor presented to him by the abbot in case of protection from enemies, girded himself with a sword with gold trim and all alone walked to the Kibune temple. There he offered up prayer.
“O all-merciful and all-benign god Kibune and great bodhisattva Hachiman! he exclaimed and folded his palms. - Defend the Minamoto clan! If it is fulfilled according to my cherished desire, I will build for you a noble sanctuary, adorned with precious stones, and add to it a thousand of those lands! " Having made this vow, he retreated from the temple and moved away to the south-western side of the valley."
Kurama is a visible embodiment of Japan's characteristic peaceful neighborhood of the main religions - Shinto and Buddhism. If the "Legend of Yoshitsune" cited above mentions the Shinto deities Kibune and Hachimane, then another medieval Japanese cultural monument - "Collection of letters and stones" in the tengu gradation appeals to Buddhist values: "If the heavenly dogs are divided into categories, then the main ones will be two: good dogs and bad dogs. The wicked are completely driven by arrogance and do not believe in the Buddha Law. This prevents them from doing good deeds - but they do not know that they make it difficult for themselves to get out of the cycle of rebirth. Good dogs are committed to the path of the Buddha, possess both wisdom and knowledge, have ascetic merit, but at the same time succumb to passions, and their knowledge and deeds remain within the visible world. These dogs, although they belong to the genus of demons, are wise,follow the path of Buddha and do not harm people. They can save a person from the wiles of evil dogs and protect the Buddha Law. They are said to be close to breaking out of the cycle. Such kind dogs are the teachers of the True Words."
Over time, the story of how the tengu taught Yoshitsune the martial arts became so popular and familiar that today it is almost perceived as a reality, especially since many of its participants actually existed, and I really want to believe in the existence of others. Especially when you are on Kurama yourself. Today, it is a place of pilgrimage for the itinerant Yamabushi monks, historically "closely related" to the famous ninja and who are said to be fond of taking on the tengu. There are representatives of various martial arts schools here, remembering their legendary roots (the founder of aikido Ueshiba brought his students here for training and meditation), and pensioners wandering in columns, learning their native places in their declining years.
Their interest is understandable and imbued with the spirit of patriotism: besides the tengu, the Japanese emperors have always shown sympathy for the sacred mountain and its temples. True, it is not easy to climb Kurama, how to descend from it. Although not very high, the climb is quite steep and is riddled with thousands of powerful cryptomeria rhizomes protruding from the ground as if they deliberately want to grab your foot. But the atmosphere here is very special. It is hard to believe that a million-strong city is noisy a few kilometers away, but long-nosed tengu are noisy here at night.
This is probably why Mount Kurama was chosen and made their spiritual center by the adherents of a new philosophical and religious movement - Reiki. Their philosophy, densely mixed with all religions at once, teaches three ethical principles:
1. Do not do or say anything bad and work on yourself. That is, do not do anything harmful to your body, mind and heart either.
2. Be honest and work for the good of humanity.
3. Immerse yourself in the life energy of the Universe and trust this source unconditionally.
But still, first of all, Kurama itself is a Shinto shrine, inhabited by many local spirits, among which there is a significant one, like the aforementioned Kibune, and there are also smaller ones - tengu of different heights of the hierarchical ladder. Thanks to the latter, this place has also become a historical background for Japan, a backdrop to samurai history, without which it is absolutely impossible to imagine the history of this country. Either history made the demons famous, or the demons themselves wove a legend for themselves - while on Kurama, there is no desire to delve into dialectical reasoning. It exists, and on this mountain it is believed that everything else exists …