Moreya
Moreya or Moriya -no-Kami or Moreya is a Japanese deity who appears in various myths and legends of the Suwa region in Nagano Prefecture. The most famous of such stories is his battle and subsequent defeat under the hands of Takeminakata, also known as Suwa myōjin, the god of the Grand Shrine of Suwa, who in one version of the myths about him was supposed to have established his rule in the region by subjugating local deities who resisted him.
Moriya is also held to be the ancestor of the Moriya clan, who originally served in one of Suwa Shrine's two sub-shrines, the Upper Shrine as priests known as Kan-no-Osa or Jinchōkan. The Jinchōkan, a hereditary position passed down from father to son, occupied an important position in the Upper Shrine due to his prerogative to summon and dismiss divine spirit called Mishaguji during certain religious rituals of the Upper Shrine.
Due to the similarity of their names, Moriya has been for a long time conflated with the anti-Buddhist Ōmuraji Mononobe no Moriya, who was defeated by the pro-Buddhist Soga clan in 587.
Name
What is currently the most common rendering of Moriya's name in kanji appear in sources such as the Suwa Daimyōjin Ekotoba, where the god is pejoratively referred to as an 'evil outlaw', and the written genealogy of the Moriya clan, the Jinchō Moriya-shi Keifu. It is also the rendering adopted by Moriya Shrine in Okaya City in Nagano.In addition, a number of texts refer to the god as Moriya Daijin, an epithet also used for the historical Mononobe no Moriya.
Finally, the rendering 守宅 is also attested, although this is more commonly applied to Moreya's son, Moriya/Morita.
Mythology
Battle with Suwa Myōjin
The most famous story involving Moreya is that of his conflict against the god of Suwa Grand Shrine, known either as Takeminakata or as Suwa myōjin.The basic gist of this myth in most sources involves a certain god defeating Moreya, who is often described as armed with a certain kind of iron weapon or implement, using only a branch or vine of wisteria. Some versions of the story end with the triumphant god planting or discarding the branch, which then turns into a tree or a whole forest of wisterias.
In the ''Kamisha Monoimi-rei''
In Suwa Nobushige's petition
The earliest written version of this myth is found in a petition submitted by Suwa Nobushige, then high priest of the Upper Shrine of Suwa, to the Kamakura shogunate in 1249. The Upper Shrine was at the time involved in a dispute with the high priest of the Lower Shrine as to which of them was the main shrine of the area, and thus, is to set a precedent in religious rites. Against the Lower Shrine's charges, Nobushige argued for his own shrine's superiority by describing its origin myths and its ceremonies.In the petition, Nobushige relates a story from "the ancient customs" that the Upper Shrine's precincts was once the land of 'Moriya Daijin', who got into a dispute with a god who came down from heaven and was seeking to gain possession of his land. After arguments and armed conflicts fail to settle the matter, the two finally compete in a tug of war using hooks made out of wisteria and iron. After his victory, the god imposed punishment on Moriya and built his dwelling in Moriya's land. The wisteria, which was planted before the god's dwelling, turned into a grove known as the 'Forest of Fujisuwa', which in turn gave its name to the region.
In a later passage, Nobushige states that the god brought a mirror, a bell, a bridle and a saddle with him during his descent from heaven, which were preserved in his day as the Upper Shrine's sacred treasures.
In the ''Suwa Daimyōjin Ekotoba'' and the ''Suwa Daimyojin Kōshiki''
What is perhaps the most well-known version of the story occurs in Suwa Enchū's Suwa Daimyōjin Ekotoba as an origin myth of Fujishima Shrine in Suwa City, one of the Upper Shrine's auxiliary shrines where its yearly rice-planting ceremony is traditionally held. In this version, Moreya is described as an "evil outlaw" using a ring of iron as his weapon.A record of the Upper Shrine's regulations or taboos originally enforced in 1238, the Suwa Kamisha butsuki rei no koto, lists 'Fujishima Daimyōjin' as the first of thirteen middle-rank auxiliary shrines of the Kamisha and identifies its god as a manifestation of the wrathful Wisdom King Acala. Nowadays, the shrine is instead considered to be dedicated to the goddess Konohana-Sakuya-Hime.
The myth is retold in a substantially similar fashion in a Shinto-Buddhist liturgical eulogy to the Suwa deity believed to have been composed by Enchū around the same time as the Ekotoba known as the Suwa Daimyōjin Kōshiki.
In Suwa clan genealogies
Two genealogies of the Suwa clan, the Maeda-bon Jinshi Keizu and the Jinke Keizu, contain a somewhat euhemerized variant of the myth: the battle is placed during the reign of the Emperor Yōmei, Moreya - again referred to as 'Moriya ' - is apparently conflated with the anti-Buddhist ōmuraji Mononobe no Moriya, and Suwa Myōjin fights the battle through his avatar, the boy priest Arikazu.A Muromachi period work authored by Rinzai monk Ten'in Ryūtaku known as the Ten'in-goroku recounts this variant of the myth: here, Arikazu was said to have defeated Moreya/Moriya "at the time of the 32nd human sovereign Emperor Yōmei, Buddhism spread to the east."
In the ''Jinchō Moriya-shi Keifu''
The Jinchō Moriya-shi Keifu, a genealogy of the Moriya clan compiled at the beginning of the Meiji period by Moriya Saneyoshi, meanwhile identifies Moreya's opponent with Takeminakata as he appears in both the Kojiki and the Sendai Kuji Hongi: a god driven away from the land of Izumo.Moreya and Yatsukao/Ganigawara
Another myth involving Moreya concerns the defeat of the god Yatsukao-no-Mikoto also known as Ganigawara of Tenpaku-shime Shrine in Chino City.A folk version of the story states that after Moreya's defeat in the hands of the Suwa deity, Ganigawara, a powerful and wealthy god/chieftain in the region, held Moreya in contempt for surrendering to the foreign god and even had messengers publicly revile him as a coward. When Moreya paid no heed to their insults, Ganigawara's servants began to resort to violence, shooting arrows at the palace Moreya and other deities were erecting for Takeminakata. Takeminakata, considering it an affront, then launched an all-out attack against Ganigawara, who was caught unprepared and thus, was quickly defeated.
Ganigawara, mortally wounded by an arrow in the assault, repents in his deathbed and, via Moreya, entrusts his youngest daughter to Takeminakata. Takeminakata gives her hand in marriage to Taokihooi-no-Mikoto a.k.a. Hikosashiri/Hikosachi-no-Kami, who was injured by Ganigawara's messengers as he was keeping watch over Takeminakata's abode. Taokihooi then settled down with his new wife in Ganigawara's land, which he also inherited.
The rain god of Mount Moriya
Behind the Upper Shrine of Suwa, straddling the border between the cities of Suwa and Ina, stands the 1,650 metre-high Mount Moriya, which is often claimed to be the shrine's go-shintai.The god of this mountain, usually called Moriya Daijin, identified with either Moreya or Mononobe no Moriya, is traditionally held as a weather deity who causes rain to fall when angered. Local rainmaking rituals once involved provoking the god into sending rain by vandalizing the hokora or throwing it down the mountain side.
Popular belief holds that rain falls whenever clouds gather around the mountain top. A local folk song advises people to prepare to mow the fields whenever the following signs of incoming rain are observed:
Offspring
The Jinchō Moriya-shi Keifu claims Moreya to have had two children, a daughter named Tamaru-hime and a son named Moriya or Morita-no-Kami. Tamaru-hime married Izuhayao, a son of Takeminakata, while Morita became the father of the god Chikatō, who married Urako-hime, the goddess of Mount Urako in modern-day Matsumoto City.Curiously, according to the genealogy Chikatō was succeeded by Kodamahiko, the son of Katakurabe, another one of Takeminakata's children, under the orders of the god himself. Kodamahiko was said to have married Mitsutama-hime, the daughter of Moritatsu - identified in the genealogy as yet another son of Takeminakata - and begat the god Yakushi.
Analysis
The story of Moreya's battle against Suwa Myōjin/Takeminakata/Arikazu has been interpreted either as a mythicization of a conflict between indigenous Jōmon hunter-gatherers of the Suwa region and agrarian Yayoi peoples who began to settle in the area, or between the local clans of Suwa and the expanding Yamato state somewhere during the 6th to 7th centuries CE. Accordingly, Moreya is believed by some to be a deified indigenous priest-chieftain or clan leader who once held political and religious authority over the Suwa region.The author :ja:大和岩雄|Iwao Ōwa meanwhile theorizes Moreya to be a personification of the guardian nature spirit or Mishaguji worshipped by the Moriya clan. He further proposes that Moreya/Moriya and Moriya/Morita - Moreya's son in the Jinchō Moriya-shi Keifu - were originally a single figure later split into two, with the elder Moriya being connected with hunting and the younger Moriya being mostly associated with sedentary agriculture.
by Kikuchi Yōsai
Moreya, the Moriya clan and Mononobe no Moriya
The similarity between the names of both Moreya/Moriya and the 6th century Ōmuraji Mononobe no Moriya, who opposed the introduction of Buddhism to Japan, had led to a long-standing conflation of the two figures.A certain legend claims that a son of Mononobe no Moriya, named either Takemaro or Otogimi, survived the defeat of the Mononobe in the Battle of Mount Shigi in 587 and fled to Suwa, where he married into the Jinchō Moriya clan; Takemaro is thus reckoned as a clan ancestor in the Jinchō Moriya-shi Keifu. A small mound in the Moriya clan's historical estate in Chino dated to the 7th century is claimed in family lore to be Takemaro's tomb.
Ōwa believes this story to be modelled after the biography of Mononobe no Masara, who according to the Sendai Kuji Hongi married Imoko, the daughter of an unidentified 'Suwa-no-Atai' during the reign of Emperor Buretsu in the late 5th century, yet sees it as at least being inspired by a real-life connection between the Mononobe clan and Shinano Province.
Moriya Shrine in Okaya City where Moreya is worshipped currently denies any connection between the god and the Mononobe chancellor.
Descendants
Moreya is held to be the ancestor of the Moriya clan, which traditionally served as priests of the Suwa Kamisha.The chief priest of the Kamisha was the ōhōri or ōhafuri, who was considered to be a living deity and the embodiment of Suwa Myōjin, the god of the shrine. Assisting the ōhōri were five priests, at the head of which was the kan-no-osa or jinchōkan, an office occupied by members of the Moriya clan. The jinchōkan oversaw the Kamishas rites and ceremonies in general and summoned Mishaguji - a god or gods thought to inhabit rocks or trees worshipped in the region since ancient times and regarded by the Moriya as their patron deity - to possess individuals or inanimate objects during ceremonies, being the only one considered to be able to do so.
, built by architect Terunobu Fujimori.It has been observed that the religious climate of Suwa is a syncretism of ancient indigenous beliefs and practices reorganized under a Yamato framework, but with the local element still predominant. Despite his officially being a living god and the Kamishas chief priest, the Suwa ōhōri - who assumed the office during childhood - had little, if any, real power or influence in the shrine's affairs, which firmly rested in the hands of the Moriya jinchōkan, with his unique ability to hear Mishaguji and call upon the god to descend upon someone or something and his knowledge of special rituals, which were closely guarded secrets traditionally passed down via word of mouth only to a single individual, the heir to the office of jinchōkan.
The establishment of State Shinto in the Meiji period abolished the tradition of hereditary succession among Shinto priests and private ownership of shrines. Accordingly, the shrine at Suwa passed under the control of the state, with government appointees replacing the clans who had historically served as its priests, the Suwa and the Moriya among them. As the ancient priestly offices of the shrine became defunct, most of the unwritten tradition once guarded by the Moriya jinchōkan died with the last occupant of the position. A museum dedicated to preserving information about the Moriya and documents owned by the family, the :ja:神長官守矢史料館|Jinchōkan Moriya Historical Museum, currently stands on the clan estate in Chino City, Nagano.