Amida-do at Daisenji Temple

 

High on Mount Daisen was a major Shugendo site centred on Daisenji Temple.

At its peak, it had a huge number of sub-temples and other structures in three distinct areas, though with the separation of Buddhas and Kami followed by the suppression of Buddhism in early Meiji, they have been reduced to only 10 from 42.

In the former Saimyoin area the Amida Hall remains.

An earlier building was destroyed by a flood, but this version was built in 1552, and used some of the wood that was salvaged from the original.

The Amida statue inside was carved in the 12th century, and along with a pair of attendant statues and the hall itself, is an Important Cultural Property.

Behind the Amida Hall is a stone torii, all that remains of a Sanbo Koshin Shrine.

Sanbo Koshin is a Buddhist deity created in Japan. Sanbo refers to the three treasures of Buddhism, and Sanbo Koshin is a deity that protects the three treasures.

With a Buddhist deity, the shrine was destroyed in the early Meiji.

A path leads through the forest to the Sada River, with the other parts of the temple complex on the other side. There is now a road bridge just downstream, but the river can be crossed on foot most of the time.

Upstream, the banks of the river are lined with piles of stones. This is Sai no Kawara, a boundary between the world of the living and the dead where children who die before their parents wait and pile the stones before being saved by Jizo, the primary deity of Daisenji Temple.

The previous post was on the Yokai Temple Enjuin with 108 paintings by Mizuki Shigeru.

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Inter Media Station

 

After finishing the second day of walking along the Sasaguri Pilgrimage, we headed back into Fukuoka for the night.

Living in a very rural place, the architecture of big cities is a delight for me.

We went to IMS, long name Inter Media Station, close to Tenjin station.

It is a multi-storey mall, primarily for shopping but also plenty of eateries and event spaces as well.

A litlle bit too pricey for me....though as a countyry hick I can marvel at the bright lights and shiny baubles..

The last three photos are not IMS, but the Daido building, a life insurance company, then the famous ACROS Fukuoka, and finally inside another mall in the Tenjin Station building...

The previous post was on the last temples of the day in Sasaguri.

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Yokai Temple Enryu-in

 

One of the sub-temples of Daisenji, high up on the slopes of the sacred mountain Mount Daisen, is Enryu-in.

Many temples have painted ceilings where each small square contains a picture of flowers, animals, deities, etc.

Enryu-in is unique in having a ceiling with 108 paintings of Yokai, Japan's supernatural beings, including ghosts, monsters, poltergeists, shape-shifters, and spooks.

They were painted by Mizuki Shigeru, the famous manga artist who revived many of the traditional yokai and created many new ones.

He lived not far from here in Sakaiminato, and it is a mecca for manga and yokai fans. I have posted before on the yokai statues that line the street there: post 1, post 2, post3.

However, the temple has been closed to the public since 2018, so members of the public can no longer view this unique artwork.

The reason, they say, is that now that the cost of rebuilding the temple has been repaid, they are reverting to being a purely religious facility.

Quite a few people are kind of miffed about this. The yokai ceiling has attracted lots of visitors, so the town's tourist office is unhappy, but many, many potential visitors are also unhappy.

Mizuki Shigeru painted the ceiling for free, as a donation to help the temple raise funds. Countless thousands of his fans have donated to the temple, and so it seems a little churlish of the temple.

Anyway, you can enjoy my photos as I visited before 2018...

The previous post in this series was on the walk up the mountain.

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Sanda Sunset

 

At the end of day 5 of my walk along the Kinki Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage, I watched a glorious sunset from my hotel room in Sanda, Hyogo.

Nothing else to say.....

The previous post was on Kaburaiji Temple, number 11 on the Kinki Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage.

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A Walk Up Mount Daisen

 

Day 45 of my walk begins in Yonago, the main city of western Tottori.

The next temple is high on Mount Daisen, the mountain that dominates the view and is the highest mountain in the Chugoku region at 1,729m.

Heading out of town I must be on the old San-in Do highway as there are numerous large, traditional properties....

Yonaga is not a big city, so I was soon out into the countryside, but there were still some large properties...

As I got closer to Daisen I stopped in at Ogamiyama Shrine, linked to the sacred site up on the mountain where I am heading.

As I left the flat plain and started the slow climb up the mountain, I found some lovely, old Buddhist statues in a roadside shrine, many coats of paint peeling away.

What I presume to be a folk-carving of a !,000 armed Kannon looks eerily like a sea creature or beetle

A little further, I stopped in at a couple of shrines, Okanari Shrine and Hiyoshi Shrine.

Passed by an army driving school.....

The road a little later was lined with tall pine trees. Believed to have been planted around 400 years ago to mark the route for travellers up to Daisenji Temple...

I am only going as high as the temple, about halfway up at about 900 meters above sea level.. However, the higher slopes of the mountain were covered in mist...

By early afternoon, I reached the small settlement below the temple. Now bolstered by the trade in food and accommodation for hikers of the mountain in summer and skiers in winter.

The previous post was on Okanari Shrine and Hiyoshi Shrine

If you would like to subscribe by email, just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published or made public. I post new content almost every day, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the last ten posts