• Shikoku Pilgrimage
• Amy Katoh
• Kumamoto Castle
• Uchiwa
• Enoden
• Ekiben
• The On Matsuri
• Kusatsu Onsen
• Interview with a Geisha
• 'Anime' Fatasy at the Ghibli Museum

Koyasan, Japan's sacred mountain

February 2005

Text and photos by Robert Cameron

The sacred precinct of Koyasan, nestled in the mountains above Hashimoto, Wakayama Prefecture, near Osaka, has been a sacred place from time immemorial, made more so by the influence of the famous priest Kobo Daishi, posthumously called Kukai, who founded a religious community there in 819. The area is a mountain redoubt, where eight peaks surround dozens of ancient temples, forming concentric circles in the shape of a lotus blossom. In the morning and evening, mist drapes the peaks, lending a sublime atmosphere to the site.

It would be hard to overstate the influence Kukai has had on Japan -- he is one of the most revered figures in Japanese history. He introduced Shingon (True Word) Buddhism to Japan, after he took a two-year trip to China and returned in 806 a convert to Shingon, an esoteric (monastery-based) form of Mahayana Buddhism. He founded numerous temples, including 88 on the island of Shikoku, which became a pilgrimage route that is popular to this day. In 816 Kukai came to Koyasan and made it his headquarters, founding the Kongobuji temple.

He is famous as a poet, painter and calligrapher, and legend has it that he also invented the "kana" syllabary. In modern Japanese, kana are used mostly for verb endings and for spelling out "kanji" (Chinese characters) for children and illiterates, as well as for unusual pronunciations, rare kanji and foreign words for which there are no characters.

Kukai now sits in repose in his mausoleum, the Oko-in, not dead, the faithful believe, but still deep in meditation awaiting the coming of the Buddha of the Future. Monks at Oko-in bring him food twice a day.

The best way to experience the peace and serenity of Koyasan is to stay at a "shukubo," or temple lodging. The tourist office hooked me up with Ekoin temple, in the middle of town hard by the main drag. Ekoin is typical of the 53 or so temples at Koyasan that take guests. It dates its history from the 8th century, when Kukai himself was building the five-story stupa in this area. Okoin later fell into disuse, and was rebuilt in 1308.

Maintained over the centuries by generations of monks and trainees, the temple wears its age well. The glass in the windows is wavy with age, and the old wood of the floors is shiny and smooth from age and traffic, scrupulously spic and span, with not a speck of dust sullying the warm woody glow. The temple contains nooks here and there commemorating old things from the temple's past -- a section of an old tree bubbling with burls, cut years before up on the mountain; a vase of flowers arranged ikebana style; calligraphy from long-departed monks.

I was there just as the trees were turning color, and the temple's garden was awash with color from the red and yellow cryptomeria and maple leaves.

The monks, heads shaved and dressed in identical blue smocks, act as the hotel staff, and provide courteous service of a level one might find at a good "ryokan," or traditional Japanese hotel. My room was quiet and clean, the furnishings spare -- just a low table and some cushions on the floor.

The Koyasan temples are famous for their gourmet vegetarian cuisine, known as "shojin-ryori." The food was lavish, and served in the rooms, and was, naturally, entirely vegetarian and utterly delicious. Dinner was soba in soup, tempura, sesame tofu, a bowl of the famous Koya-dofu, a "gammo doki" (a kind of disk of fried tofu with gin nuts, seaweed and other stuff inside), and assorted fresh and pickled vegetables, washed down with "kikucha" tea. Dessert was a mysterious sour red gumball-size fruit that we'd never seen before.

All that on top of a day's touring in the clear mountain air, plus a soak in the temple's beautiful black granite "ofuro" (communal bathtub), and I was nodding off by 8:00.

I awoke at 6 am, my ears ringing in the silence, in time for morning services at 6:30. A monk knocked on my door and led me and some other guests to the temple's main hall, where the morning's main service was held. One monk chanted sutras from a venerable scroll, the other accompanying him on a "wa-daiko" drum and cymbals. In the hall row upon row of "kyozo" (sutra containers) glowed in the dim candlelight. Later we moved to a smaller building, where two monks performed a ritual in which they built a bonfire in a huge burner, and then read prayers for health and prosperity from petitioners to Kukai. After morning services, we returned to our rooms for a breakfast of miso soup, "sansai" (mountain vegetables), more gammo doki, rice, fried tofu and tea.

Later, I took a stroll through the cemetery, and was entranced as sunbeams lanced the low-lying mist, lighting up the tombs and the towering cryptomeria trees. Even in full daylight, and I felt I was getting a glimpse of what brought Kobo Daishi to this sacred place.

There are an estimated half million tombs in the mountain precincts, the oldest dating to the 9th century; the main cemetery, Okunoin, has over 200,000. The biggest and most important of course is that of Kobo Kukai himself, at the end of a 2km path through the vast necropolis. Not surprisingly, this is the most desirable cemetery real estate in the country, and getting buried there takes serious clout, and a considerable amount of money. Anyone who is anyone, for centuries, has been interred there, if only a lock of hair or a tooth or two.

The idea behind all the tombs is that anyone buried there is in the pole position for the return of the Buddha of the Future. The newer section has more modern designs. There are a lot of corporate tombs in this area, including those of automakers Nissan and Toyota, Kirin Beer, and aerospace firm Shin Meiwa Kogyo, which had a nifty rocket-shaped number on its tomb.

Koyasan boasts some remarkable architecture. The huge Kongobuji Temple is the headquarters of Shingon Buddhism in Japan, and contains administrative offices for the 4,000 or so Shingon temples in Japan. The temple's Banryutei rock garden is the largest in Japan (2,349 square meters); its 140 pieces of granite are arranged to resemble a pair of dragons emerging from a sea of clouds to protect the temple.

Down the way is the blinding orange Konpon Daito, or Great Stupa, construction of which was begun by Kobo Daishi himself; it houses a three-dimensional mandala that demonstrates the nondual nature of the Shingon teachings. The mammoth Daimon, or Great Gate, at the west end of town, is a spectacular structure, and commands a magnificent view of the mountains. The Hall of Lamps, in front of the Gobyo, houses thousands of lamps, several of which have been burning for nearly a thousand years.

The town of Koyasan can get clogged by traffic, especially on weekends, when it shatters the serenity of the place; it's pretty annoying, but you have to take it in stride. After all, Koyasan has a long tradition of hospitality -- pilgrims have been journeying there for over a thousand years to experience the beauty and peace of Kukai's mountain. For most of that time they came trekking up the mountain on foot. Now they come in comfort, in air-conditioned tour buses, then hike the last 2 km on foot up the path to the Gobyo, Kukai's mausoleum, dressed in white with the distinctive "kongozue," or walking staff. Over a million a year make the journey.

You can drive to Koyasan, and a lot of people do, especially on weekends. The town's single street can get gridlocked, and tour buses disgorge hordes of pilgrims every day. Taking the train provides a little time for transition -- it helps step the pace down in stages, from the whispering haste of the Nozomi shinkansen from Tokyo to the Nankai Dentetsu line train out of Osaka's Namba station, and then on to the slow clanking of the cable car that heaved us the last mile or so up the mountain. It's not exactly easy to get there, and it takes time, about 3 hours from Osaka, but it's a pretty ride, and a chance to ease into the Koyasan pace.