Eleven different Services
Eleven different Services is a gloss of juichi-tori no tsutome 十一通りのつとめ, a term that appears in The Life of Oyasama, Chapter Five. The term refers to Services Oyasama had taught in 1875 so followers could petition God the Parent to enact blessings for 11 specific purposes.
Each Service has an opening stanza with words and hand movements unique to that particular Service which is performed in place of the Songs for the Kagura's Section One. The remainder of each Service is then followed by Sections Two through Five conducted in the fashion of a typical Monthly Service/Grand Service.
Categories and forms
Shozen Nakayama once divided the 11 Services into three categories:
1. Services associated/dealing with the human body:
2. Services associated/dealing with crops:
3. Service to settle circumstances:
History
Oyasama is said to have taught these Services in 1875. They are alluded to in Ofudesaki as follows:
The Service: it is not always the same. I shall teach you the hand movements for each purpose.
Only the Service for Safe Childbirth and Service for Germination are still performed in the present. Most of the remaining Services are merely mentioned in the historical record. The only other Services that have supporting evidence indicating they were ever conducted at all are the Service against Smallpox, the Service for Fertilizer, and the Service for Rain.
Although Oyasama allowed the Service for Rain to be conducted away from Jiba on a handful of occasions, fundamentally, these Services are/were Kagura Services restricted to being conducted with the Jiba-Kanrodai at center.
References
- A Glossary of Tenrikyo Terms, pp. 209 and 377.
- 中山正善 Nakayama Shozen. 『続 ひとことはなし その二』 Zoku Hitokotohanashi sono ni, pp. 145–153. (link to online translation)
- 『改訂天理教辞典』 Kaitei Tenrikyo jiten, pp. 407–408.
