Over the Hai no Toge Pass on the Imperial Route

 

After leaving Itoga and its intriguing temple with a cinderella story, and also the oldest Inari shrine in all of Japan, I continue north and head across the Arita River.

It is 28th March, 2016, the 8th day of my walk along the Saigoku Pilgrimage.

While pilgrimage is a fairly universal phenomenon, most of them seem to be based on one particular site, with maybe many different routes from different directions to get to that site. Think the pilgrimage to Mecca or the famous Camino de Santiago in Spain. Japan has those types of  pilgrimages, perhaps the most famous being the pilgrimage to Ise during the Edo Period, but it also has what might be referred to as circular pilgrimages.

It is generally believed that the Saigoku Pilgrimage that I am walking on in this series of posts, is the oldest of such circular pilgrimages to a series of sites. It visits 33 temples that have a particularly noteworthy Kannon statue. Kannon is one of the most popular bodhisatvas is Japan and is largely derived from the Chinese goddess Guanyin which became equated with Avalokiteshvara the original Indian deity that spread with Buddhism into China.

There are 33 different forms of Kannon, so the Saigoku Pilgrimage has 33 temples. Many other parts of the country created their own version of the 33 temple Kannon Pilgrmage, in fact, the pilgrimage I am most posting about on my blog right now is the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage, a fairly modern pilgrimage created in the 1980's.

The first temple on the Saigoku Pilgrimage is Seiganto-ji, way down at the southern end of Wakayama Prefecture. The next temple is Kimiidera, located in the northern part of the prefecture. For the past 8 days I have been walking from the first to the next. However, the route I have been walking corresponds to anothet pilgrimage route, the Kumano Kodo.

The Kumano Kodo is a set of three sacred sites in southern Wakayama and the pilgrimage routes between them, and more importanty the series of pikgrimage routes that converge upon them, are now a designated World Heritage Site. The routes close to the 3 sites are the most popular, and are very touristy. However the section I have been walking for the past few days, called the Kiiji route, is more accurately known as the Imperial Route as it was the route used by emperors and other nobles from the court in Kyoto.

The Imperial route has 100 "oji", shrines spaced along the route where these high-ranking pilgrims would  worship and stop overnight at. There are  few, if any, tourists on this section nowadays, but it seems to be becoming more popular among travellers and those with more than a passing interest.

So this post covers about a 10 kilometer section of the route, starting at the river.

The route climbs to the Hai no Toge pass at more than 300 meters above sea level before dropping down into Kitsumoto.

The way is mostly on very narrow mountain road with almost no traffic and also no shops or even veding machines until Kitsumoto. No pilgrimage infrastructure except a couple of public toilets and sign at historical markers.. I did not pass any other walkers, though occasionally exchanged greetings with locals 

I did pass by a couple of the oji shrines, and at times there were some really nice views.

This was very much orange country, with the steep mountain slopes terraced and planted with citrus.

This seems to me to be a fairly modern thing, and I wonder what the several mountain villages I passed through did before the citrus industry came to dominate.

Fruit on trees enclosed within paper bags is  something I see quite often, but am pretty sure they are not oranges.

I guess it is to protect the fruit from damage by insects or birds. An example of why fruit in Japan is mostly a luxury price....

The previous post was on the Tokujoji Temple with associated princess legend.

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