Wednesday, May 28, 2014

The Marriage Of The Millennia


You have got to be kidding me.

No, that is not the correct explosive expression of emotion.

OK, now we know that history in Japan is truly over.

There, that's better.

The news is that Her Highness Princess Noriko will be marrying the son of the chief priest at Izumo Taisha.

What is unbelievable about that?

That an imperial princess is marrying the son of the chief priest at Izumo Taisha.

Imagine, for example, an announcement that the daughter of Ali Al-Sistani was to marry the son of Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais. That is sort of how crazy this announcement is, from a religious history perspective.

And yet, in the English language articles on the wedding announcement -- like this just-the-facts Mainichi report (Link) or this too-embarrassingly-sycophantic-to-read version from, where else, the Yomiuri Shimbun (Link) -- not a even a whiff of the astonishing bridging of a religious feud going back close to two millennia.

4 comments:

Ἀντισθένης said...

So that's what that was about. Of tangential relevance to an ancient feud to the heart of the 'soul of Japan', I wondered who the attractive Philippina-Japanese was on the news...

I know nothing of her branch of the bloodline. I also know that there is no such thing as 'pure blood' anywhere, and we're the better for it genetically. Now if we could only do something about the myths thereof...

Steve McClure said...

Please explain more about the feud. And this guy doesn't look 40.

CrazyMai said...

Could you explain it a bit more? :)

Anonymous said...

From what I've read, Amaterasu arranged for her eldest son to form the Imperial line while her second son and his descendants would run Izumo Shrine. So I thought this wedding is merely a reuniting of the two lineages.

But what is this "two millenial fued" you speak of?