Excerpts from:
Nao Deguchi: A Biography of the Foundress of Omoto
(Kameoka: The Omoto Foundation, 1982)
http://www.oomoto.or.jp/English/enBooks/index.html#nao



Foundress in her later years






A Grandmother's Prediction

The years 1836 and 1837 were years of terrible famine in Japan. Torrential rains inundated the fields, destroying the crops. Starving people ate everything conceivably edible, to the point of boiling and eating the rush outer layer of the mat flooring to stave off the pangs of hunger. Even the wealthy had nothing to eat, many dying of starvation with fortunes at their sides.

Families everywhere viewed with horror the arrival of another mouth to feed, and the abandoning of unwanted infants was an open practice. Given the lax attitude of society toward this primitive method of birth control, succesive cros failures sealed the fate of countless innocent babies.

At the time there lived in the village of Fukuchiyama in the province of Tamba a certain Gorosaburo Kirimura, who followed the family tradition of carpentry. At one time the Kirimuras had been carpenters in the service of the nobility, entitled to surname and sword, a privilege usually denied those below the rank of samurai. They were also innkeepers and led a very comfortable life. From Gorosaburo's generation, however, a series of family misfortunes forced the Kirimuras to sell their estate and take up residence in a small house.

Gorosaburo and his wife Soyo had two sons, and in 1836, at the peak of the famine, Soyo conceived a third child. This event precipitated a family crisis and Gorosaburo and Soyo would lie in bed talking over their predicament in whispers until far into the night. The only solution semed to be to get rid of the baby, until one night Gorosaburo's mother Takeko overheard their discussions from the adjoining room.

Deeply incensed, she took them to task saying, "How can you talk that way about a child God has blessed you with! You know the old saying that children born in times of distress make a mark on the world. There must be some reason for you to have a child in a year like this. This old woman has only a few more years to live, and if the worst comes to the worse, just let me starve instead. At any rate, I don't want to hear you talking like this again!"

Thus it was that on the morning of the 22nd of January, in the accursed year of 1837, as the faint rays of the morning sun brought life to the mountains of Tamba, Nao Deguchi, the Foundress of Omoto, gave a healthy first cry.

Childhood

Being born during a year of exceptional famine and at a low point in the family fortunes was only the beginning of the hardships that lay in wait for the Foundress. Her father, by nature headstrong and cantankerous, would often resort to physical violence when he had been drinking. When Nao was only two years old, Gorosaburo in a fit of rage threw her out into the snow in the back garden. Again, when Nao was four, her father sent her out to buy rice wine. Lost in play, she forgot her errand and when she returned empty-handed, her father bundled her up in the bed clothes and shut her in a closet.

Her mother Soyo, on the other hand, was a truly good woman, gentle,and scrupulous in her duties as a parent. Her conduct was exemplary that her mother-in-law, a rather difficult woman, often boasted about her son's wife to the neighbors. Nao's strength of character, so evident in later years, no doubt owed much to the upbringing she received from her mother.

Meanwhile things got worse and worse for the Kirimura family until Gorosaburo was reduced to eking out a living as a street vendor of a kind of sweet drink made of fermented rice. Finally in 1846, when Nao was nine years old, Gorosaburo developed malignant cholera and after a day of suffering passed away. The loss of the breadwinner to a family already in such unenviable circumstances was a blow that is difficult to imagine. As a result Nao went into service at a certain Kanaya rice merchants' in Fukuchiyama.

In her new surroundings, Nao's industry and tidy appearance earned her a good name with both the master of the house and the other servants. In addition, her devotion to her mother was outstanding. All of her salary she saved for Soyo. Twice a year the servants received new kimonos, but Nao exchanged hers for money and sent the money to her mother. Such exemplary behavior attracted wider and wider attention until the lord of the fief of Fukuchiyama awarded her a commendation when she was eleven years old.

After three years at the rice merchants' Nao went on to employment at a number of other households, but the family needed her at home and at the age of sixteen she returned to help with her mother's work, the spinning of yarn. Due to her perfectionist nature, she was so skillful that her yarn brought twice the usual price, it is said.

Adoption Into the Deguchi Family

In countries where ancestor worship is indigenous to the culture, a barren marriage produces a peculiarly critical situation. If you have no children, who is going to sweep your grave and honor your tablet on the family altar after you are gone? If you have only daughters, they are going to marry and undertake such duties only in their husbands' families, and your problem is equally acute. In Japan adoption is the commonest solution to such a dilemma. If you cannot have children of your own, you are forced to adopt some child from a more distant branch of the family or even from outside the family in order to insure that after you have passed on, there will be someone of your own family name to carry out these essential rites. Spirit entities that lack such support from the world of mortals are believed to become extremely vengeful ghosts afflicting their former families with illness and misfortune of various kinds. Therefore it is of great concern to the entire family that the ancestors be properly placated.

In Soyo's hometown of Ayabe there lived a man named Masagoro Deguchi. Having no children of his own, he adopted a certain young man called Masahei, who married Soyo's younger sister Yuriko. Unfortunately Masahei died without leaving any children, and Yuriko begged Soyo to allow her to adopt Nao into the Deguchi family to continue the family line and so serve the ancestral spirits.

In 1853, when she was sixteen, Nao was adopted by Yuriko in Ayabe, but she did not get along with her aunt, and after six months she went back to her mother in Fukuchiyama. One day the following year, Yuriko, desperate to continue the Deguchi family line, came to the Kirimuras' house and threatened to haunt them after her death unless Nao came back to the Deguchi family. That evening, Yuriko drowned herself in a well.

At the time, a certain Giemon from a community near Fukuchiyama was seeking Nao's hand in marriage, and Nao seemed in favor of the arrangement. After suffering a serious illness, however, Nao, terrified by her aunt's threat, resigned herself to going to Ayabe. So, in 1855, at the age of eighteen, Nao returned to the Deguchi family. In the same year, the Deguchis adopted a certain Toyosuke Shikata, who changed his name to the family name of Masagoro Deguchi, and he and Nao were married on the 20th of March.

The Foundress' Husband

The former Toyosuke was a carpenter and twenty-eight years old at the time he entered his new family and married Nao. He brought with him three apprentices and a sizable debt.

Masagoro, as he was to be called, was a very lighthearted fellow and extremely fond of sake (Japanese rice wine) of which we are told he drank about two quarts a day. While drinking he liked to amuse everyone with an endless repertoire of songs and jokes. His work as a carpenter, however, was outstanding and very much in demand in the area. Unfortunately, he was by nature generous and easygoing so that he often took a loss on his various projects, and he was also inclined to free his apprentices before there was time for them to repay their master for teaching them their skills.

Nonetheless, the newlyweds managed to live comfortably at first, even building a new house immediately after the wedding. Such felicity did not last long. Masagoro's chronic negligence and mismanagement in matters of the family's finances and his over-generous attitude toward associates and relatives set the family fortunes on a downhill course that ended in ruin.

As their resources dwindled, the number of their children increased. The year after their marriage a daughter, Yoneko, was born, followed by three children who died in infancy. Next came a second daughter, Kotoko, a son, Takezo, a third daughter, Hisako, a second son, Seikichi, a third son, Denkichi, a fourth daughter, Ryoko, and on February 3, 1883, the day of Setsubun, when Nao was forty-six, the fifth daughter, Sumiko, was born. This last daughter was to become the second spiritual leader of Omoto.

Poverty

Meanwhile, the family debts grew and grew and eventually they had to sell their house and move into a rented accommodation. For a while they tried running a tavern, suplementing their income with selling rice cakes. Every night Nao would grind about eight quarts of rice in a stone mortar and pestle to provide rice flour for the cakes. All this with the young Ryoko strapped to her back and the infant Sumiko to her breast. Hisako and Seikichi would put the finished cakes into boxes and go out to peddle them on the streets.

Meanwhile, the bibulous Masagoro was in his wine cups. Next to his sake he enjoyed the performance of skits and singing that wandering troupes of minstrels brought to the village. Nao would pack a lunch for him and he would absent himself from the domestic scene. One such group is said to have so fascinated him that he followed them around the town and into the outlying villages without returning home for twenty days.

Through all the hard times Nao remained devoted to her husband, listening meekly to his every request however unreasonable. The harmony that prevailed in the household was the model of the neighborhood, and after Masagoro's death, Nao often remarked that her only regret was that she could never afford to keep a whole barrel of rice wine in the house for her husband.

Disaster Strikes

In 1885 when Nao was forty-eight years old, Masagoro fell from the roof of a house he was repairing severely inuring his pelvis. The injury, made worse by chronic alcoholism, was complicated by palsy, which became so severe that for three years he was laid up unable to move.

Adversities never come singly, and so it was with the Deguchis. The eldest son, Takezo, was at this time studying carpentry with a certain Kichizo of Komura, but he became sick of his profession and caused a great stir by attempting to take his own life. The attempt was unsuccessful, but he did give himself a serious injury.

Thus, at a time when no one knew where the next meal was coming from, Nao was faced with the nursing of two invalids and the rearing of her eight children. In the piercing cold of winter the whole family would huddle together under a threadbare quilt. When summer came, since the mosquito net had long since been sold to buy medicine, Nao would be up most of the night burning mulberry root to keep away the mosquitos so that the younger children could sleep. Meanwhile Masagoro was his old indifferent self, guzzling and wisecracking, with the occasional comic song thrown in.

Desperate for a way to feed the family, Nao at last hit upon the idea of collecting rags and wastepaper. Since it was an outdoor business, she had to leave the two invalids and the children at home. Through it all she never ceased in her dedication and her kindness and never left the house without asking her husband if there was something she could get for him. And so, in the end, even the thoughtless Masagoro was deeply moved by his wife's devotion saying, "I have always done what I wanted without thinking of anyon else, and now God has punished me. When I think of your kindness, it brings tears to my eyes."

The ordeal Nao went through during these years is almost beyond imagining. Each morning Hisako made a lunch for her of rice gruel with herbs, but Nao would invariably say, "I don't need it. You have it." Or she would take it outside where Ryoko and Sumiko were playing and give it to them. Once, on her way back from a long journey to Miyazu to buy rags, as she was climbing the steep slope of Fuko Pass, in the falling snow and with an empty stomach, she collapsed and fell into the valley below where she lay dying of cold and hunger until at the last moment she was rescued by some passersby.

Incredibly, however, in the depths of poverty and engaged in the grubby work of rag-collecting, Nao never let herself look untidy. She was scrupulous about the laundry, and the womenfolk of the town would remark that Nao looked better in her patched and rice-starched kimono than other people in their best dress.

Once, while her daughter Hisako was working as a servant-girl in a place called Yagi, Nao, in desperate need, swallowed her pride and in order to borrow money visited the family where her daughter was employed. The master of the house asked his maid three times, "Is that really your mother?" so unwilling was he to believe that a woman of such refined appearance would send her daughter out to work as a servant.

The Passing of Masagoro

In the third year of his illness and only a month after New Year's, Masagoro's condition took a turn for the worse, blotches appearing on his arms and legs, and even Nao began to despair of his ever recovering. At this time Masagoro begged his wife, "You've looked after me for a long time, but it looks like this is the end. Do you think I could have a cup of sake in parting with this world?"

"Of course, of course," Nao replied. "I'll go and get some right away. In the meantime pull yourself together and please don't talk like that any more!" Rushing to the door, she stopped, realizing that she had not a penny to her name. Desperately looking around the house, she was unable to find anything to exchange for money, everything pawnable having long since gone.

At last her eyes alighted on the old scales, the very tool of her trade upon which the entire family's welfare depended. Carrying the scales to the pawn shop, she asked for a loan of three sen, only to be told that they were not worth it. In the end she was able to borrow two sen from her rag-collector friends and with that she bought sake for Masagoro.

Back home, tasting the sake, Masagoro was very happy and said, "Delicious! Delicious! Now I have no regrets."
   And so, on the first of March, 1887, after his long suffering, Masagoro passed away at the age of sixty. On her knees at her husband's side, Nao wept, begging the gods to let her make the long journey with him.

The funeral was held with a bare minimum of ceremoney.

Spirit Dreams

After Masagoro's passing, the Deguchi family resources reached rock bottom as adversity followed upon adversity among the members of the household. Yoneko, the eldest daughter, who had entered upon a second marriage with a certain Shikazo Otsuki of Nishimachi in Ayabe, in 1891 began to show signs of insanity. As for the sons, the would-be suicide Takezo eventually recovered from his wounds but refused to continue his carpentry training and finally drifted away not to be heard from again for seventeen years. Seikichi enlisted in the army and with the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1894 was sent to Taiwan where he soon died in action. Denkichi, under duress, was adopted by the same Otsuki who had married Yoneko. Thus the prospects for the family seemed bleak indeed, but just as household affairs reached their lowest ebb, events took a completely unexpected turn.

It all began on the night of the lunar new year of 1892. Nao, then fifty-five, had a mysterious dream in which she found herself in the midst of a series of palaces, many-tiered and beautiful beyond anything she could have imagined. Choosing what appeared to be the central palace, she entered through the main portal and beheld, sitting upright on a throne, a divine figure with noble aspect and a long beard. Nao, overwhelmed by the sublime appearance of this godlike personage, approached as if entranced. Raising his majestic form to its full height, the divine figure took Nao's hand and led her deep into the palace where they came to a staircase leading up to a shrine. Ascending the steps alone, the divinity intoned some words of prayer and then led Nao back to the main hall.

Nao, still in trance, left the palace and turned to what she conceived to be the northeast. There, beyond a large gate, loomed a palace even more imposing than the first. Enthroned within was another divine figure, the sublimity of whose person and the brilliance of whose jewels made Nao tremble with awe.

This divinity rose slowly from his throne and proceeding straight up to Nao, looked fixedly at her face. The inspection over, he resumed his throne without uttering a word. Nao, terrified, ran out of the palace and through the gate as fast as she could.

Outside, she beheld yet another magnificent palace, inside which she discovered her late husband, Masagoro. Forgetting all else, she ran to him, and as the two were excitedly talking over old times, Nao abruptly awoke from her dream.

The next night and the next Nao had similar dreams, and from about this time a mysterious spiritual aura seemed to settle around her.

The Beginning of the Foundress' Spirit Possession

On February 3, 1892, Nao paid a visit to her daughter Yoneko in Nishimachi. Ryoko and Sumiko, then eleven and nine years old, remained at home. Lonely, and cold, they huddled around a charcoal fire, and talking about their sister in Nishimachi, they soon grew drowsy and fell asleep. At about midnight, they awoke with a start to hear a loud voice shouting, "Sumiko! Ryoko! Open the door!"

The voice was their mother's, but never before had they heard her speak in such a loud and commanding tone. The two girls ran to open the door. The Nao who strode into the house, far from her usual gentle self, showed an imperious presence that would have quelled the devil himself.

"Go to your sister's house at once," she ordered, "and tell her to light thirty-six candles and chant the name of the holy sutra."

The astonished girls ran barefoot out of the house clutching their wooden clogs in their hands. After running for a while, they paused to catch their breath and one of the girls said, "She really did say light thrity-six candles and recite the name of the holy sutra, didn't she?"
"What would make her say a thing like that?"
"You don't think she's gone off her head like Yoneko?"
"What will we do if Mother goes crazy too?"

Arriving at the Otsuki household, they gave Otsuki and their sister Nao's message. Otsuki muttered to himself, "It seems their mother has finally gone mad," and to the girls, "All right, all right. Go home and tell your mother not to worry. Yoneko is lighting the candles and getting ready to chant the name of the sutra."

The girls left Otsuki's house and returned home, but their mother was nowhere to be found. Anxiously searching the house, the two girls found their mother's kimono in one of the rooms. Hearing a noise outside by the well, they went to see, and there, in the freezing weather, was their mother bathing in buckets of icy water (Note: Pouring buckets of cold water over one's person is standard practice for Japanese ascetics).

When Nao returned to the house, the girls reported, "We've been to Nishimachi and said what you told us."

"Well done," their mother replied. "You must be frozen. You'd better get into bed before you catch cold." This time it was their mother's usual calm, tender voice, and the girls went to sleep much relieved.

From this time on, Nao's icy ablutions continued every evening, and an invisible spiritual presence entered and left her at intervals. This presence seemed to push up with great power from the pit of her stomach, and Nao would begin roaring in a great voice not her own. In her own quiet voice she would reply or ask questions and the spirit would roar in response. In this way Nao and the spirit possessing her carried on their strange dialogue, and it was thus that the Foundress' possession began.

Nao was perfectly aware when the spirit entered her. First her body became extraordinarily heavy, and she felt a great force in her abdomen. At this time all feeling of fatigue left her and her posture became erect and rigid, like an effigy in stone. Presently her body began to rock backward and forward and she would raise and lower her feet alternately. At such times Nao's chin would be drawn in, her eyes glittering, and with tremendous pressure from the pit of her stomach the voice would come forth in a solemn tone.

Nao, who did not care for all this bellowing in a loud masculine voice, would occasionally clench her teeth, determined not to speak. In vain. The great voice would burst forth even so, forcing her mouth to open.

Nao Questions the Spirit

When the Foundress first entered this state of spirit possession she was startled and alarmed by what was happening to her, and only wished to rid herself of the intruder. Since this proved to be impossible, she eventually settled down and began to question the entity as to who and what he was.
"Who are you?"
"I am Ushitora no Konjin."
"Surely you are trying to deceive me."
"I am God. God does not lie."
"Are you really such a great god? How can I be sure you aren't just a fox or a badger?" (Note: In Japan the fox or the badger is often supposed to be the manifestation of low spirits that delight in perplexing or tormenting mortals).
"I am not a fox or a badger. I am the god who will reconstruct the world."

After repeated questioning, Nao was forced to the conclusion that she was indeed possessed by some form of deity. She also came to understand that her lifelong sufferings had been predetermined as a trial, a cleasing of body and spirit in preparation for her use as a pillar for the divine plan, and she resigned herself to a life of complete obedience to the spirit's urgings.

Before reaching this conclusion, however, true to her cautious nature, she worried a great deal that she might be leading mankind astray with these pronouncements of the "reconstruction of the greater world." And so she consulted priest-mediums and occultists of various kinds to examine the spirit and pass judgement on its authenticity.

Judgement of the Abacus Fortune-teller

On one occasion, Nao was told that at a place called Oro in Kimimura, there lived a man who told fortunes using the Japanese abacus and who was renowned for exorcising demons. As soon as she learned this, she set out for Oro.

Nao felt that it was strange for the deity in possession of her to choose such an illiterate person as herself to make his divine will known. And even if the entity occupying her were really such a great spirit, she, at her wits' end as to where the next meal was coming from, was hardly in a position to devote herself to such momentous affairs. Furthermore, she secretly wished to be rid of this awesome being and the sooner the better.

At Oro, the fortune-teller asked Nao's date of birth and other details, and proceeded to rattle away on his abacus. Presently he looked up, his face a picture of horror.

"Nao!" he said. "This is absolutely incredible! How do you intend to go about building a shrine to contain and placate such a powerful deity? It would take the power of the Emperor and all his court.

"In the hands of a mighty spirit such as this, if you go around saying all kinds of things, people will think you are crazy. You had better let me seal it up for you." So saying, he produced a small box of white wood, and handing it to Nao, said, "Put this on your family altar when you get home."

Nao carried the box home with extreme care and was about to place it on the household shrine when her hand sprang back convulsively, the box clattering to the earth floor. The spirit's voice came booming through.

"Well, I've certainly put you a lot of trouble! That must be the best fortune-teller in Japan. But I'm not the kind of puny god to be impressed with petty sorcery like his. This isn't the first time that he has sealed me up. Many ages ago he was one of those who shut me away in the northeast as it was ordained. So it is his karma to try again, but it is not going to do him any good this time."

About a week later, Nao, worried about the fortune-teller, went back to Oro to see how things were with him. When she arrived, she saw a mourning sign outside his house with neighbors going busily in and out. When she asked one of the mourners who the deceased might be, she was told that the fortune-teller had begun to suffer stomach pains and then violent paroxysms after confining a certain powerful spirit about a week before, and the previous night, taking medicines and calling doctors to no avail, had died. Nao wept.

In her search for answers to her problem, the Foundress went to priest-mediums far and wide, and also visited shrines in Yagi, Shimabara, Osaka, and Fukuchiyama. But whenever she went, there was no one who could tell her what the spirit possessing her was.

Misunderstanding

For thirteen days after her initial possession, Nao went without food, and for seventy-five days she was not allowed to sleep. Meanwhile she cried out warnings to people in a loud voice urging them to reform, but the people only regarded her as insane.

About this time in Ayabe there were frequent outbreaks of fire, evidently the work of an arsonist although the culprit always managed to elude the authorities. Finally the establishment of a timber merchant in Sendamachi was burnt to the ground and the neighbors recalled that Nao, in her possessed state, had been crying out, "If you don't reform in time, there is no telling where the sparks will fly."

Putting two and two together, the neighbors informed on Nao to the police, who took her to prison for questioning. Meanwhile the real culprit was found and Nao released, but the neighbors, on the advice of the police, got together and made a small cell where they confined the 'madwoman.'

The job of Nao's jailer fell to her son-in-law, the spiteful Shikazo Otsuki, who kept strict guard, only allowing her the most meager nourishment. Nao wanted desperately to escape but found her supervision too strict and in despair she even contemplated suicide. At this the spirit's voice again made itself heard.

"You must not die! Your life is all-important for the great things expected of you. Be patient, and I will get you out on the night of the full moon. If you die here in defiance of my orders, your spirit will go on in this cell as if it had never left your body."
   So however much she wished for death, even this escape was denied her.

The Beginning of the Scriptures

While still in detention, Nao appealed to the spirit, "If I carry on like this, roaring in a loud voice, people will only think me insane, and besides, it's painful to shout so loud. Would it not be possible to make your august will known in some other way?" The voice in reply commanded her to take up a writing brush. However there was no writing brush in the cell, and even if there were, unlettered as she was, Nao could not have written even a single word.

Nao hesitated, but the voice spoke again: "It is not you who will do the writing. I will make you write, so take up the brush and forget your doubts." Nao looked around. Her eyes fell on a nail and she picked it up. To her amazement, her hand began to move of its own accord and scratched some words on a pillar--words which the illiterate Nao could not read.

This was the beginning of the scriptures of Omoto, to be called the Ofudesaki meaning "from the tip of the writing brush." Later, Nao was to write in profusion on proper paper with brush and ink, reaching, by her passing in 1918, approximately two hundred thousand pages of which she was never able to read any part.

Content of the Ofudesaki

The Ofudesaki is written throughout in hiragana (cursive syllabic script). The writing style is quite artless, and to the layman it looks truly unskilled. But scholars have admired it, pointing out similarities with the plain and forceful, natural script of the Six Dynasties (AD 222-589) of China.

Nao wrote the Ofudesaki with a small brush of inferior quality, a cheap inkstone, and a crude grade of ink. Because it was a spiritual power guiding her brush and not Nao herself, her illiteracy, aging vision and lack of adequate lighting could in no way prevent the torrent of words.

The literary style of the Ofudesaki is decisive throughout with interrogatory phrases or hesitations nowhere to be found. The following are some sentences from the opening of the work:
The Greater World shall burst into bloom as plum blossoms at winter's end. I, Ushitora no Konjin, have come to reign at last.... Know ye, this present world is a world of beasts, the stronger preying upon the weaker, the work of the devil. Alas, ye world of beasts! Evil holds you in such thrall that your eyes are blinded to its wickedness--a dark age, indeed. If allowed to go on in this way, society will soon lose the last vestiges of harmony and order. Therefore, by a manifestation of Divine Power, the Greater World shall undergo reconstruction, and change into an entirely new creation. The old world shall suffer a most rigorous purification that it may become the Kingdom of Heaven where peace will reign through all ages to come. Prepare yourselves for the Age of Peace! Ye sons of men, hold yourselves in readiness! For the word of God is never-failing....

Activities After Leaving Detention

When Otsuki came to visit Nao in her cell on May 30, 1893, Nao calmly turned to him and said that if he could effect her release, she would agree to anything he asked. At this time, happening to be in straitened circumstances financially, Otsuki agreed to free her if she would let him sell the Deguchi family's house. Thus, on her fortieth night of detention, the night of the full moon, Nao walked out of her cell.

Otsuki relieved Nao not only of the house but also all the household effects down to the very pots and pans. All that was left was the stone mortar in which Nao had once ground flour every night for the cakes that the children sold. With nowhere to live and not even a cooking utensil to her name, Nao was forced to send her children elsewhere to be cared for while she herself began to lead an unsettled existence, spending her time at Otsuki's house or with Hisako in Yagi. Meanwhile she occupied her time sorting rags, spinning yarn or minding children. She also began healing sick people by her prayers.

Soon after leaving detention, Nao cried out in possession that the following year a war would take place between Japan and China. This pronouncement was followed early the next year by an order from Ushitora no Konjin to go to China. Nao did not know exactly where China was, but obediently set out and had got as far as Kyoto, when Ushitora no Konjin told her that she could go home, that He just wanted to see if she would really go or not. That year, 1894, the Sino-Japanese War broke out, the war that was to claim the life of Nao's second son Seikichi. Nao's prediction had come true.

It was not long before the news of Nao's spiritual powers began to spread, attracting the attention of Kamejiro Ohashi, priest of the Konko-kyo shrine in Kameoka. Thinking to make use of her healing powers to spread the teachings of Konko-kyo, he dispatched another priest of the shrine, Sadajiro Okumura, to Ayabe where he invited Nao to stay in his house and enshrine her god next to the god of Konko-kyo. Believers began to flock to the shrine as Nao's reputation grew. In the meantime, Nao was busy washing, cooking, running errands or cutting firewood in the mountains.

It soon became evident that Okumura had little interest in Ushitora no Konjin and was only using Nao to further the interests of his own sect, and after a while Nao left Konko-kyo. Okumura's prayers were no match for the Foundress' and deeply humiliated, he finally ran away under cover of darkness. Another priest of the sect induced Nao to return, but after more difficulties Nao severed her ties with Konko-kyo once and for all. This was in 1897 when Nao was sixty years old.

A Man from the East

Some years previously a mysterious prediction had appeared in the Ofudesaki to the effect that a man would come "from the east" who would recognize Ushitora no Konjin and make his message known to the world. Accordingly, Nao bid Hisako and her husband set up a tea stall in the shade of the pine trees by the roadside outside Yagi where they should await the man from the east.

Presently a young man with blackened teeth, wearing an old-fashioned cape and carrying a large valise, stopped at the tea stall to take a rest. Deciding that this could be the man they were waiting for, Hisako showed him some writings from the Ofudesaki, told him something of her mother, and invited him to Ayabe. The young man seemed startled and then impressed by what he read, and so, on the 8th of October of 1898, he did indeed meet the Foundress for the first time.

The person in question was a certain Kisaburo Ueda from Anao, now a part of Kameoka. as it would happen, this young man had been undergoing austerities in a cave on Mt. Takakuma, a holy mountain near Kameoka, in the late winter of the same year, and while deep in trance had received a divine command to go to the northwest where someone would be awaiting him.

Nao was sixty-one and Kisaburo twenty-seven years old when their first meeting took place. The young man spent two days with the Foundress before making his way back to Sonobe where he was then living.

At first it seemed that nothing would come of their encounter, but Ushitora no Konjin kept insisting in the writings that Ueda was "the very one" and about a year later Nao sent one of her followers, Heizo Shikata, to try to persuade Kisaburo to come back to Ayabe. But first the young man had to return to his native village of Anao to inform his mother and grandmother of his intentions, and to pray at the local shrine for guidance in the days ahead. He then rejoined Shikata at Sonobe and the two set out for Ayabe.

A deepening sense of trust marked the second meeting between Nao and Kisaburo and on January 1, 1900, Kisaburo and Sumiko, Nao's youngest daughter, were married before the altar of Ushitora no Konjin. Kisaburo Ueda changed his name to Onisaburo Deguchi, the name he was to make famous as Co-Founder of Omoto and one of the most controversial figures of his times.

Mission at Moto-Ise

On April 19, 1901, Nao wrote the following in the Ofudesaki: "There is no water in the world to compare with the pure crystal water of the door of the Celestial Rock Cave at Moto-Ise. Go there and bring back some of this water."

The Celestial Rock Cave is the scene of the ancient Shinto myth of the Sun-Goddess Amaterasu, who, upset by the wild behavior of her younger brother, the deity Susanoh-no-mikoto, hid herself in the Rock Cave so that the world was plunged into darkness. This cave is said to be at Moto-Ise, north of Ayabe, where the Sun Goddess was originally enshrined before the present Grand Shrine of Ise was established on the Pacific Coast. The Ofudesaki continues: "If this were not the command of Ushitora no Konjin, you would not be able to get this precious water. Ushitora no Konjin has given his permission, so you will not be hindered."

Keitaro Kinoshita went to Moto-Ise to reconnoitre. When he got back he reported that the drawing of this water had been prohibited from time immemorial, and it was said that should anyone defy this ban, there would be devastating hurricanes and great floods. There was a priest on guard to see that no one touched the sacred water, and to get to the place where the water could be drawn it was necessary to cross a fast-flowing river some twelve feet wide.

Six days later, on April 26, 1901, Nao, now sixty-four years old, left Ayabe with Onisaburo, Sumiko, and thirty-nine followers, most of whom had no knowledge of what the mission was about. With them they took two segments of green bamboo to carry the water.

Arriving at Moto-Ise, they stopped to rest at a tea shop. Unknown to the other followers, one of the party, a man by the name of Yoshimatsu Moritsu, slipped away to the shrine while Kinoshita waited at the entrance of the tea shop for word that the coast was clear. All this was in order that none of the more excitable members of the party find out what was happening.

As the sun was beginning to set, Moritsu came back and reported that the priest on guard had gone back to his house, probably for his supper. Kinoshita, realizing it was now or never, ran off as fast as his legs could carry him. Arriving at the rock cave, he could dimly make out in the fading twilight an old tree trunk lying across the river, an access which had not been there six days before. Using the tree trunk as a bridge, he crossed the river, filled the bamboo joints with the sacred water, and returned to the tea shop.

Nao was overjoyed, and when Kinoshita told her about the tree trunk, she said, "That was no ordinary tree trunk. That was surely the Dragon God himself coming to our help."

The next day they prayed at the shrine and bade farewell to Moto-Ise, walking all through the night back to Ayabe. Only when they were back in Ayabe did Nao publicly announce the nature of the mission they had accomplished.

The holy water which they had brought back was first offered on the altar of Ushitora no Konjin. One cylinder was set aside, and the other the followers passed around, taking a sip each, before pouring the remainder into the Omoto well, to be designated as Kin-mei-sui (golden bright water), and into the wells of the former Deguchi and Shikata homes. (At the time both these wells belonged to outsiders, but they were later to return to Omoto.)

The remaining cylinder of water they mixed with the water of Kin-mei-sui, and in May, Nao, accompanied by thirty-five followers, took this water to the island of Meshima, climbed to the summit of the rock where they had landed the previous year, and poured the water into the sea below, praying:
"Oh, Ushitora no Konjin, we humbly beseech you, with your power, wide as the Pacific Ocean and deep as the Sea of Japan, to make this pure water from Moto-Ise circle the seas of the world, turning to clouds, turning to rain, snow and hail, watering the five continents, cleansing corrupt spirits, washing away impurities, and building a paradise on earth."
Concerning this ritual decantation, Nao remarked: "In three years this water will go around the whole world, and then the world will begin to move. Meanwhile people whose destiny it is to serve the divine plan will begin to gather here."

Mission at Izumo

On 25 April 1901, the day before the party set out for Moto-Ise, Ushitora no Konjin spoke through the Ofudesaki of yet another labor for the group, a long trek to the Grand Shrine of Izumo:
"If you make a... journey to Izumo and successfully fulfill a certain mission, the gods will reconstruct the world--both the things above and the things below. Failure to complete this mission means that you can never comprehend this coming great event. On the other hand, once you achieve this understanding, all things can then accelerate."
Izumo, on the northwest coast of the Sea of Japan, is not only in geographical contrast to the Grand Shrine at Ise, final resting place of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, on the southeast, Pacific coast. According to Shinto tradition, after the gods and goddesses had succeeded in luring Amaterasu out of the cave in which she had secluded herself, they banished Susanoh, her offending brother, from heaven and it was at Izumo that he first arrived. The deity enshrined at Izumo is Susanoh's descendant Okuninushi no Mikoto, who ceded control of the country to the descendants of the Sun Goddess, reserving for his own line the right to govern the world of the unseen.

In the early morning of 1 July 1901, Nao, Onisaburo, Sumiko and twelve others began the long journey on foot to Izumo, there being no railway at the time. Onisaburo had at first demurred at making the trip on foot pleading a painful case of neuralgia in his legs. Nao insisted that they go together and a riksha was arranged to take the patient. Shortly before their departure, however, Onisaburo's neuralgic condition rather mysteriously cleared up.

On the eleventh they reached the Grand Shrine and put up at an inn nearby. The following day they prayed at the shrine, and after two days' rest they received the sacred fire, said to have been kept alight since the age of the gods, as well as some water from the well and some of the earth of the shrine precincts. The sacred flame they took by lighting three long ropes, only one of which ws to arrive back intact. Their mission accomplished, they set off for home, arriving at Ayabe on 20 July.

The earth they scattered on the hill of Mt. Hongu and various other places on the Ayabe grounds. Half of the water they poured into the well of Kin-mei-sui, and the rest they mixed with the water of Kin-mei-sui, and on 25 July Nao, Onisaburo, Sumiko and a party of followers travelled to Meshima, where Nao poured the water into the sea as she had the water of Moto-Ise.

The fire was kept glowing for one hundred days on a bed of charcoal, with a watch kept over it night and day. On the one hundredth day they lit fifteen candles from the fire and let the candles burn down, thus returning the holy flame to heaven.

Nao and Onisaburo

The Misen episode illustrates the almost irreconcilable difference between the roles of Nao and Onisaburo in Omoto. Nao's role was faithfully to receive revelations from Ushitora no Konjin, while it was Onisaburo's task to interpret these teachings and build an organization that would make them known to the world--a world hostile to the founding of a group in accordance with Ushitora no Konjin's strict injunctions. This dichotomy caused considerable tension, arousing much anti-Onisaburo feeling among Nao's followers.

Once after returning from their pilgrimage to Izumo, Nao and Onisaburo became possessed, and the spirits possessing them proceeded to have a fierce quarrel. The followers present were horrified wondering what the outcome would be, but were even more surprised to see the Foundress and Onisaburo, coming out of their trances, being if anything more friendly than before.

However, this difference did also show in their lifestyles. For example, when in the cold weather one of the followers would bring in a charcoal brazier, Nao would refuse to warm herself even after reaching the age of eighty, saying it was disgraceful to think of one's own comfort while engaged in divine affairs. Onisaburo, on the other hand, would immediately go over and warm himself, saying that on the contrary, it would be a shameful waste just to let the charcoal turn to ash.

The frugal Nao wore simple cotton clothes all her life, while Onisaburo was fond of dressing up in all kinds of outfits, Japanese or Western-style as the fancy took him.

If Onisaburo should say that he wanted to eat sushi, Nao would immediately prepare this dish for him; should he say he fancied mandarin oranges, she would go all the way into town to buy them. Nao allowed Onisaburo to have whatever he wanted. When he overindulged, however, she would pray for Ushitora no Konjin's guidance.

"Nao, do not worry," came the reply. "Without this man the divine plan will not succeed. Should you search the whole world you would not find another to take his place. If I revealed his true nature now, the forces of evil would interefere. That is why I have made him appear the way he is." So Nao went on as before.

Another bone of contention concerned the Ofudesaki's warnings about a food crisis:
"People use the good earth planting useless trees and flowers, not giving a thought for the rice, barley, wheat, beans and millet, which are the very life of the people, saying that these things can always be purchased from abroad. But the time will come when every square inch of land will have to be planted with cereals."
In accordance with this, Nao admonished against the wasting of arable land, and whenever she had time would tend her own vegetable garden. Onisaburo, however, saw nothing wrong in planting colorful flowers to delight the eye. Nao, seeing Onisaburo's flowers, would pull them up, and Sumiko, finding herself in a dilemma, finally took to hiding her husband's plants under the verandah.

Kamishima


The Omoto party to Kamishima
Onisaburo (right, standing) and Nao (left, crouching)


Building proceeded at Ayabe, and in 1914 a new sanctuary, the Kinryuden, and a new house for the Foundress were completed. In the same year, work began on a project which had been ordered in the Ofudesaki some ten years back--the construction of a lake in the Omoto grounds as a miniature sea for the Princess of the Dragon Palace. In this lake, called the Kinryukai (Golden Dragon Sea), were islands representing Meshima and Oshima, and another island called Oyashima. On each of these islands were small shrines. One day in the early spring of 1916, when the work was nearing completion, Onisaburo while meditating had a vision of an island which he seemed to have seen somewhere before. This island seemed to be calling to him from the sea to the southwest, but more than the general direction he could not tell. Onisaburo had indeed seen this island before, or rather its model, for its shape was the same as that of Oyashima in the Kinryukai. Onisaburo sent two followers to search for this island and presently they returned with news that there was an island which answered this description off the coast of the Inland Sea. This was Kamishima, a small rocky uninhabited island some seven miles southwest of the town of Takasago.

On 4 October Nao, then seventy-nine, Onisaburo, Sumiko and some one hundred followers journeyed to Kamishima to enshrine the deity of the island, the spirit Hitsujisaru no Konjin, God of the Southwest. The following day the party returned as far as Osaka, where Nao was moved to put brush to paper.

Nao was astonished at what Ushitora no Konjin had to say. The time had come to reveal the true nature of Onisaburo's mission. Onisaburo's spirit, she wrote, was the spirit of Miroku (Maitreya), the savior who will usher in the new age. Onisaburo, who had been distrusted and ostracized by the other followers ever since joining Nao, was reaffirmed as the vessel of the spirit Hitsujisaru no Konjin, the complementary opposite of Ushitora no Konjin, and moreover the Ofudesaki had referred to this spirit as that of the savior Miroku.

From that time on, Nao could rest assured that Onisaburo would carry on the work of the reconstruction of the world according to the divine plan.

The pilgrimage to Kamishima was Nao's last long voyage. On 19 September 1917 she paid a visit to the new home of her daughter Ryoko, who had married Keitaro Kinoshita. After this Nao did not leave Omoto. From then on she was usually to be found in her house writing the Ofudesaki.

One day Onisaburo, who wanted to show Nao the expanding buildings and gardens of Omoto, carried her around the grounds on his back. Nao expressed her pleasure and gratitude but added how much happier she would be for even one person to see the truth.

To the very end Nao was full of concern for others. One chilly March morning one of the followers, Jinsai Yuasa, went to pray and noticed Nao squatting on the verandah in her nightclothes emptying the contents of a waste paper basket. Supposing that Nao had mislaid something valuable, he went over and asked her what it might be. Nao replied that she had not lost anything but was doing this for the waste paper collectors. Looking closer, Yuasa saw that she was carefully sorting the waste paper into three piles.

On many occasions she was heard to say, "Our poor soldiers! Our poor factory girls." And early in the morning when the nearby factory whistle blew, she would think of the factory girls and say, "Ah! That's what they wake up to every morning."

Passing

One day at the end of October 1918 a well-known reciter of joruri (classical Japanese ballad drama) called Harukodayu, an Omoto believer, came from Osaka insisting that he be allowed to perform for the Foundress. When artists like Harukodayu came to offer performances, Nao invariably declined saying that here at Omoto she was being shown the great drama of the world, and that there was no need to watch man-made theatricals. Her attendants were therefore much surprised, on hesitantly informing her of the presence of this artist, to hear her meekly reply, "Oh, so God wishes me to hear some joruri."

"What a good mood the Foundress is in today. Until now she has not once agreed to watch plays or listen to joruri recitations. Let's get ready right away before she changes her mind," they agreed, and so that evening Nao sat down to Harukodayu's performance in the Kinryuden.

After the recitation was over, she remarked, "That man is one of the best in Japan, I hear, but I haven't a clue what is good about him or even what kind of story he was telling. I suppose if you can't understand something you can't understand it, however skillfully it is told to you. God proclaiming his wonderful teachings to the world and not a single person listening is just like me not understanding today's joruri."

Nao had stopped writing the Ofudesaki some time back and was busy every day making amulets for the believers. When it grew late, Sumiko would suggest that she leave her work and go to bed, but Nao would always insist on working a little longer. One evening at the beginning of November, however, Nao obediently extinguished the lamp and said to Sumiko, "Now my work is over. I will do as you say."

On the fifth, Hisako came from Yagi, and Nao and her daughter spoke of many things. Nao wanted to talk until late but Hisako excused herself saying that she would return in the morning. Before dawn Hisako was back at her mother's side. Nao woke up and asked for a cup of water. Hisako fetched some water for her mother, who drank it thirstily and then went back to sleep.

Nao got up early as usual on the morning of the sixth and was on her way to the bathroom when she collapsed. Hisako and a follower who was there ran to the corridor and gently moved Nao back to her room. Onisaburo was immediately summoned and rushed to her side. Nao spoke a few words to him and peacefully sank into a coma.

Afternoon came and there was no change in Nao's condition. Fearing the worst, the followers sent telegrams to all the branches of Omoto, and prayers went up from Omoto branches far and near.

At 10:30 on the evening of the sixth of November 1918, Nao Deguchi took her leave of this world at the age of eighty-one. At 12:00 midnight a service was held in the Kinryuden sanctuary announcing the Foundress' passing.

Late in the evening of the eighth Nao was laid in her coffin. Among the belongings placed in the coffin according to tradition were paper, ink and writing brush. On the ninth the coffin was brought into the Kinryuden.

The summit of the hill Tennodaira, from which Mount Misen can be seen in the distance, was chosen as the Foundress' resting place. On 12 November the followers began preparing the tomb, carrying stones and earth day and night. The funeral was held on 6 December.

However, as though the gods did not yet consider Nao's eighty-one years of hardship enough, Nao's tomb was on two occasions violated by the Japanese authorities. During the first persecution of Omoto in 1921, the authorities ordered that the Foundress' tomb be restructured on a smaller scale on the grounds that it was too large and too similar to the tombs of members of the imperial family. Again in 1935, during the second 'Omoto Incident,' Nao's remains were transferred on official orders to a public cemetery, and for over ten years her spirit was enshrined in a pine sapling at Omoto, where it awaited the time when it could return to its proper resting place.

Onisaburo died on 19 January 1948. And it was not until 3 November of that year, thirty years after the Foundress' passing, that she and Onisaburo were laid to eternal rest in their tombs atop Tennodaira.

--END--


♣The above are excerpts from Nao Deguchi: A Biography of the Foundress of Omoto. Kameoka: The Omoto Foundation, 1982.
♣Another work on the Foundress is: Ooms, Emily Groszos. Women and Millenarian Protest in Meiji Japan: Deguchi Nao and Omotokyo. New York: Cornell University.
♣Some of Nao's prophecies are available at "The Foundress as Prophet" (Excerpts from An Encounter with Oomoto )





Pages from Foundress Nao's Ofudesaki
(literally, "from the tip of the writing brush")