12 Jun A Timeless Moment on Shikoku
Another World in which I Believe by Konstantin Leonov is licensed by CC BY 2.0.
Of all the places urban and rural I have wandered in Japan, the island of Shikoku remains my favorite. The smallest of Japan’s four principal islands, about the size of New Jersey, and situated between Kyushu and the main island of Honshu on the Inland Sea, this is where the old country lives most vividly, where the traditional and the timeless are still everyday and the sense of ancient and elemental Japan is most accessible.
Despite these attractions, Shikoku has long been ignored by foreign travelers and, in fact, by most Japanese travelers as well. This is probably because the island has almost always played a secondary role in the dramas of Japanese history, and so offers few famous historical or religious sites.
For foreigners touring Japan for the first or second time, it has made more sense to visit Tokyo, Kyoto and Nara, and then perhaps Nikko, Kamakura and Hakone or the Japanese Alps. Now, however, travelers are venturing farther afield, touring the southern island of Kyushu and the remoter reaches of Honshu, and beginning to turn their sights across the Inland Sea to Shikoku as well.
I’ve just returned from leading two trips to Shikoku, and the timeless kindness and graciousness of the island still shimmers inside me. Much of that spirit is due, I think, to the one feature everyone in Japan knows about Shikoku: It is the site of an 88-temple pilgrimage route, established by the revered monk Kobo-Daishi in the 8th century. Because of this history, the most venerable travelers on the island are pilgrims, clothed all in white with brass bells around their waists, mushroom-shaped hats made of straw on their heads and sturdy walking sticks in their hands. They are circling the island – the 88 temples follow the coast — paying homage to Kobo-Daishi, who was born here in the eighth century and went on to become the most influential priest of his time, founding the Buddhist sect of Shingon. Because of this tradition, all travelers even today are treated as pilgrims, and greeted with the same spirit-infused hospitality.
Kobo-Daishi encouraged rigorous meditation in nature, and it was in the course of his wanderings that he founded or visited each of the 88 temples now on the official pilgrimage route. After his death, his disciples followed that circuit as part of their own training. Eventually, other priests and believers walked the same route as a means of expressing their devotion. Today more than 150,000 people make the trip each year.
Our tour visited three of the 88 temples, beginning with number 38, Kongofukuji, which is located on the island’s southern tip at Cape Ashizuri. It was here that, in 1978, I had my first encounter with pilgrims. They said that they were monks and nuns from Matsuyama and that they tried to visit at least some of the temples every year. The full pilgrimage takes about two weeks to complete by bus or taxi, a jolly red-faced monk explained, and as much as two months on foot. He and his companions were traveling by taxi, as they were too old to walk the route; many still walk, the monk said, and others choose to travel in groups by bus.
Kongofukuji was established by Kobo-Daishi in 822 and rebuilt in 1662. Like many rural temples in Japan, the complex consists of a main sanctuary and smaller side sanctuaries, a pond, a huge bell, and towering stone lanterns and statues.
Wandering the grounds with the pilgrims, I discovered in a far corner a row of tiny jizo — the guardian deities of children and travelers — with red cloths around their necks. Behind them an old woman vigorously swept the dirt with a broom made of twigs and straw. Nothing else stirred.
It was a timeless scene: the moss-patched lanterns standing as they had for centuries, the weather-worn walls of the sanctuary, the still green pond, the white-clad pilgrims, the huge bell, the tiny jizo — and the woman sweeping, sweeping, the dust rising like prayers.
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