is a small island in the northern part of Lake Biwa in

Shiga Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Shiga Prefecture has a population of 1,412,916 (1 October 2015) and has a geographic area of . Shiga Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the north, Gifu Prefecture to the north ...

, in the Kansai region of Japan. It has been known since ancient times for the beauty of its scenery and for its small

Shinto shrine A is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more ''kami'', the deities of the Shinto religion. Overview Structurally, a Shinto shrine typically comprises several buildings. The ''honden''Also called (本殿, meanin ...

and Buddhist temples. Administratively, the island is part of the city of

Nagahama, Shiga is a city located in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 116,043 in 46858 households and a population density of 120 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Nagahama is located on the north ...

. The island is both a nationally designated Place of Scenic Beauty and Historic Site.

Geology

Located about 2 kilometers south of Cape Tsuzurao, Chikubushima is the second largest island in Lake Biwa after . It has a circumference is about two kilometers and a maximum elevation of 197 meters. The entire island is a

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies un ...

monolith with steep rock walls, with only one port located on the southern end. The bottom of the lake around the island is deep, and the western part is the deepest part of Lake Biwa (104.1meters). The temples, shrines and several souvenir shops are located near the harbor. Religious and store employees come from outside the island; the island is uninhabited at night. The entire island was covered with evergreens until fairly recently. According to the vegetation survey data in Shiga Prefecture from 1972 to 1973, the island had dense groves of Castanopsis, '' Castanopsis cuspidata'', '' Cinnamomum pedunculatum'', '' Ilex integra'', as well as ''

Neolitsea sericea ''Neolitsea sericea'' is a species of tree in the family Lauraceae. It is found in China, Taiwan (Orchid Island, Green Island), south Korea, and Japan. Its natural habitat is on forest margins and slopes, and it is often found in well-progresse ...

'', and ''

Camellia japonica ''Camellia japonica'', known as common camellia, or Japanese camellia, is a species of flowering plant in the family Theaceae. There are thousands of cultivars of ''C. japonica'' in cultivation, with many colors and forms of flowers. In the U.S. ...

'', and ''

Aralia elata ''Aralia elata'', the Japanese angelica tree, Chinese angelica-tree, or Korean angelica-tree, is a woody plant belonging to the family Araliaceae. It is known as ''tara-no-ki'' (; ) in Japanese, and ''dureup-namu'' () in Korean. Description It i ...

'' among other species. However, from 1977 onward, a population of great cormorants began to colonise the area, displacing the previous existing

heron The herons are long-legged, long-necked, freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 72 recognised species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons. Members of the genera ''Botaurus'' and ''Ixobrychu ...

population of the northern portion of the island and increased rapidly in numbers. By 2007 more than 40,000 birds were nesting on the island, creating tremendous environmental damage. Despite efforts to control the population by both non-lethal and lethal means, the population continued to increase to over 60,000 by 2008.。

Historical and cultural significance

Chikubushima was held to be a holy island since ancient times. During the

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from CE 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the c ...

, Gyōki is said to have built a chapel on the island to house statues of the

Four Heavenly Kings The Four Heavenly Kings are four Buddhist gods, each of whom is believed to watch over one cardinal direction of the world. In Chinese mythology, they are known collectively as the "Fēng Tiáo Yǔ Shùn" () or "Sìdà Tiānwáng" (). In the ...

, but its location and the veracity of this story is uncertain. In the south of the island, the

of Tsukubusuma Jinja claims to have been founded in 420 AD, and its associated Buddhist temple of Hōgon-ji in 724 AD. During the period of ''

Shinbutsu-shūgō ''Shinbutsu-shūgō'' (, "syncretism of kami and buddhas"), also called Shinbutsu shū (, "god buddha school") Shinbutsu-konkō (, "jumbling up" or "contamination of kami and buddhas"), is the syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism that was Japan's o ...

'', this was a single entity formerly known as the "Chikubu Benzai-ten", which was ranked with the Enoshima Shrine in the

Kantō region The is a geographical area of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba and Kanagawa. Sl ...

and the

Itsukushima Shrine is a Shinto shrine on the island of Itsukushima (popularly known as Miyajima), best known for its "floating" '' torii'' gate. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric (2005)"''Itsukushima-jinja''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 407. It is in the city of Hat ...

in the

Chūgoku Region The , also known as the region, is the westernmost region of Honshū, the largest island of Japan. It consists of the prefectures of Hiroshima, Okayama, Shimane, Tottori, and Yamaguchi. In 2010, it had a population of 7,563,428. History ''Ch ...

as one of Japan's Three Great Shrines of Benzaiten and was a popular spot for pilgrimage as No.30 on the

Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage The is a pilgrimage of thirty-three Buddhist temples throughout the Kansai region of Japan, similar to the Shikoku Pilgrimage. In addition to the official thirty-three temples, there are an additional three known as . The principal image in each ...

route. During the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

, retainers of

Azai Nagamasa was a Japanese '' daimyō'' of the Sengoku period known as the brother-in-law and enemy of Oda Nobunaga. Nagamasa was head of the Azai clan seated at Odani Castle in northern Ōmi Province and married Nobunaga's sister Oichi in 1564, fathe ...

confined his father Hisamasa to Chikubushima, forcing him into retirement and establishing Nagamasa as his successor. Many structures were brought to the island by

Toyotomi Hideyori was the son and designated successor of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the general who first united all of Japan. His mother, Yodo-dono, was the niece of Oda Nobunaga. Early life Born in 1593, he was Hideyoshi's second son. The birth of Hideyori cr ...

, son of general

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...

. The temple's Kannon-dõ and the Karamon-style gate were brought here from the gravesite (Toyokuni-byo; now Toyokuni Shrine) of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. They originally stood in the Higashiyama ward of

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...

, and are regarded as fine examples of architecture from the Azuchi-Momoyama period. Moreover, the Karamon gate of the temple and the ''

honden In Shinto shrine architecture, the , also called , or sometimes as in Ise Shrine's case, is the most sacred building at a Shinto shrine, intended purely for the use of the enshrined ''kami'', usually symbolized by a mirror or sometimes by a s ...

'' of the shrine are both National Treasures of Japan. During the

Edo Period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

, the island designated as one of the Eight Views of Lake Biwa. The shrine and the temple were formally separated by the decrees separating Buddhism from Shinto issued by the

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji ...

, but the distinction still remains blurred at Chikubushima. Several works of the Japanese performing arts relate to Chikubu. They include the Noh play '' Chikubushima'' and the Heike Biwa work ''Chikubushima Mōde'', two koto melodies named ''Chikubushima'', a '' jōruri'' (''itchūbushi''), a ''nagauta'', and a ''tokiwazu-bushi'' of the same name.

References

External links

琵琶湖開発総合管理所｜びわ湖の観光名所｜竹生島
Japan Water Agency, retrieved on November 21, 2008

Lake Biwa and Rivers Information Box, retrieved on November 21, 2008
神の住む島竹生島
Nagahama Sight-seeing Association, retrieved on August 23, 2010 {{Authority control Places of Scenic Beauty Historic Sites of Japan Islands of Shiga Prefecture Lake islands of Japan Nagahama, Shiga

Geology

Historical and cultural significance

See also

References

Further reading

External links