High Priest in Japan

In a blink of an eye, it's the weekend.

Qin Heqing returned to his home in Niiza City, Saitama Prefecture on the latest city tram——

It was a detached villa with an area not too exaggerated. It had two floors and eight rooms. Although it was not as common as some wealthy mansions with more than a dozen rooms, it was no problem for a single person with both parents dead. Qin and Qing, whose relatives and sisters lived together, said that they were old enough. Even if you change a room a day and stay for a week, you can't finish it.

Therefore, based on the idea of ​​waste utilization, Qin Heqing transformed some of the rooms that were basically not used into utility rooms, and various old objects brought back from the shrine warehouse were placed in it in a certain way, serving as the interior of fillers.

However, most of them are ordinary things, even items that are completely impossible to use, and only a few of them are ceremonial utensils that may be used during the New Year's festival, and the family heritage dug out by Qin and Qing.

For example, a book that is half-damaged, and the paper has rotted badly, and even the name is blurred and hard to read, so-called secret sword stickers.

The content is messy, who knows what it is for.

There are also some Yinfu books and the like, which are biased towards Onmyoji learning.

I really don't know why there are so many things that are not related to priests in the family of a god servant family.

Thinking about it, it seems that it is not impossible.

After all, even the temple in his family is said to have been begged from a certain daimyo in the Warring States Period, and it is impossible for a certain ancestor to see that his family background is not enough and he cannot enjoy the benefits of the sect. Life is too 'poverty' or something, so I am attracted to some onmyojis and the like.

After all, in the island country, in terms of fame, power and influence, priests are more powerful. The so-called onmyojis are not enough in front of them, they are inferior figures.

Even if extraordinary existences such as Ampere Seimei came out back then, at most, the Department of Astronomy was separated from the priests and even the Onmyoji system, and it became the private domain of the Tsuchiyamen family, and gained a certain degree of status improvement, rather than leading The entire Onmyoji system completely overthrew the priest system and became an indispensable force in the Shinto system of the island country.

There's no way, onmyojis are just so inept. In comparison, even Miko is half a level higher than their rank.

Even, in many cases, the witch is a role to help the onmyoji.

But that's only for ordinary witches. For the witches who become Zhu, the onmyoji can't control them, and they may even be dominated by Zhu.

As for the reason, it is very simple, because Zhu is a character who can communicate with the gods, and the witch is a person who serves the gods and pleases the gods.

What about the priest?

A priest is a person who manages the shrine and takes care of the palace of the gods.

In terms of functions, witches are dancers, musicians, and even servants of the virtuous body, Zhu is a saint, and priests are logistics managers.

Of course, in the absence of blessings, priests are also responsible for communicating with gods and believers, similar to the temple blessings that exist among the elders in China.

And this is just an ordinary priest. If it is replaced by a descendant of the gods, a priest who is similar to the emperor of the island country who has achieved human gods, it will be awesome. When the proper son of God descends, no one in the shrine dares to disobey it!

In comparison, onmyojis such as domestic Fengshui masters, Mr. Onmyoji, and fortune-telling half-immortals are of a much lower grade. They can neither connect with gods nor bestow blessings. At most, it is to change Feng Shui, look for graves and so on, a proper traveling businessman, apart from being extremely knowledgeable and not needing to be bound by so many rules, there is really nothing to envy.

Not to mention, some so-called conjurer characters who specialize in bad things appear in their center from time to time. It's really hard to be convinced.

Well, the topic got a bit far away, and now my eyes are back to Qin Heqing.

Qin Heqing rested for a while, then took Yue'er out of the house and went to the shrine at No. 6, 1-chome, less than a street away from his house.

Nothing happened on the way, and no moths appeared. Qin and Qing arrived at the shrine smoothly.

Then, a shrine covering a large area came into Qin Heqing's eyes.

The first is the large torii, the whole body is polished by rocks, the gray color is full of the vicissitudes of history.

Then there is the signboard - Inari Shrine...

Yes, Inari Shrine, not Dajiu Shrine, or Gongmanwang Shrine. As for the reason? Quite simply, compared to Qin Shihuang, the Inari Shrine is more in line with the belief needs of modern islanders. Therefore, even a shrine opened by a descendant of the Qin family like him had to follow the changes of the times, changing the name of the shrine dedicated to offering sacrifices to Qin Shihuang and the ancestors of the Qin family to Inari, and enshrining the god of Inari.

Anyway, they are all gods created by their old Qin family, so there is no need to struggle with a name for a long time, the key is the gods to be worshipped, as long as the gods are still those gods.

So Qin Heqing, who had known about this situation for a long time, had no idea, and walked into the shrine.

Then a spacious courtyard appeared, and directly in front of it was the main hall for worshiping the gods. The door of the hall was closed tightly, and only a box for receiving offerings was placed in front of the temple, and a thick hemp rope was tied beside it. One end of the rope is tied to the beam of the front porch of the temple, and a huge brass bell is hung from the beam. When the rope is pulled, it will make a tinkling sound.

On the side is a side building, which is not big, only two-thirds of the size of the main hall of the temple, and half of it is hollowed out in the direction facing the courtyard, forming a room similar to a sales table, with rows of shelves inside. Set up a sacrificial day, or carry out some activities such as selling amulets and helping people to solve fortune-telling activities to earn some extra money when the township group holds big activities.

The sacred tree planted in the shrine is opposite the commercial house. Because of its age, it has grown into a towering tree. The tree is so wide that no three or five people can hug it completely.

There is a hand-cleaning platform at the entrance of the shrine. The water used to clean hands and mouth comes from underground springs. I don’t know how much effort the old Qin family ancestors who built the shrine spent to complete all this.

After that, there is a corridor leading to the spiritual land more than ten meters away—or the cemetery. Stone tombstones, large or small, stand in the cemetery for the nearby descendants to visit and sacrifice.

This is the tragedy of small shrines. In order to maintain their livelihood, they have to accept some business that ordinary shrines will not accept.

For example, become a cemetery and be in charge of town spirits.

Of course, some apportionment is not ruled out.

After all, the nature of the shrines in the island country is quite magical, because they do not have the relationship with the lowest-level organizations such as sub-district offices. Before the Meiji Restoration, a large part of the shrines acted as community neighborhood committees, not only to manage population registration, death cancellation , but also to manage the thoughts of the people under the rule, and to publicize daimyo policies and other businesses.

Anyway, the complexity is beyond imagination!

This is another reason why the shrine can be honored by the public.

Otherwise, just a function of offering sacrifices to the gods, expecting any shrine to be recognized? Don't think too beautifully.

PS: Are there many typos in the last chapter? I checked it when I uploaded it! If there are still, it is my cognitive problem, I think those words should be correct, then I really can't check it out, ORZ. I have encountered it before, so I can only ask book friends to help check. Otherwise, you can only make do with it.

Anyway, I try not to make typos appear.