Koyasan, On the Road to Faith

Known for its dark, mystic forests, the sacred mountain Koyasan is synonymous with Japanese Buddhism. It reflects the profound solemnity of a faith that carries the authority of centuries of time and the wisdom of an ancient world.

I should, at least according to tradition, have been traveling up the slope with white-clad pilgrims and monks, robes smelling faintly of incense. Instead, I found myself ascending Koyasan, as it is known in Japanese, using the modern convenience of a cable car, in the company of a voluble group of housewives en route to a lunchtime meeting at a restaurant serving high end shojin ryori, or vegetarian temple cuisine.

*The great, rust-red Dai-mon, or "Great Gate," on the mountain's western edge. (©Stephen Mansfield)*

Not that I have anything against convenience and speed of conveyance. If I had walked up to the summit of the mountain on foot, following pilgrim trails through the forest, it would no doubt have provided me with the correct graduated approach to a site of spiritual significance. But would have taken several hours.

As it happened, upon disembarking from the cable car, an information office, a bus rotary, and a number of well-informed figures connected to tourism are on hand to direct you to your place of accommodation.

*Most temple accommodations on Koyasan serve vegetarian shojin-ryori dishes. (©Stephen Mansfield)*

Shigemori's Gardens

In my case, I had booked two nights at Fukuchi-in, a well-known shukubo, or temple lodging, of which there are over forty on the mountain.

The reason I had reserved a room here was because of its gardens, designed by Mirei Shigemori. Artist, calligrapher and tea master, Shigemori, managed, by shaking up the garden establishment in Japan with his use of tile, colored gravel, and concrete, among other modern materials, to generate a loyal following, but also strong detractors.

*Mirei Shigemori's modernist garden at Fukuchi-in. (©Stephen Mansfield)*

Two of the three gardens at Fukuchi-in are only visible to guests. Completed in 1974, the gardens consist of an outer dry landscape visible on the approach to the temple, and two inner designs, one another dry landscape garden with different colored gravel, and a pond garden with a sinuous backdrop of azalea bushes, seemingly representing billowing mountains and hills. Unlike other gardens by Shigemori that I have visited in Japan, these landscapes are impeccably well-maintained.

*Billowing azalea bushes in the garden of Fukuchi-in. (©Stephen Mansfield)*

Founded in 816

Some 120 temples, monasteries, sanctuaries, schools, and a half million tombs are dug into the mesa of Mount Koya. Unlike some great Buddhist centers, Koyasan has neither languished for want of the faithful, nor been violated.

*A Buddhist priest, walking from temple to temple, reads the sutras. (©Stephen Mansfield)*

Koyasan is the premier site of Shingon Mikkyo, an esoteric sect of Buddhism, founded in 816 by the priest Kukai. It's not difficult to imagine the holy man as a mendicant monk, wandering through this mist filled mesa.

*Lamps hanging from the eaves of a temple in the Garan vicinity of the complex. (©Stephen Mansfield)*

In contrast to today's pilgrim, decked out in crisply laundered and ironed apparel, all effort circumvented or accelerated by modern amenities such as buses, Kukai's robes would likely have been saturated with damp and filth after months of walking through these forests, co-existing with leeches, snakes, monkeys and wild boar.

The Buddha may have befriended animals on his journeys, turning them into fellow travelers. But common pilgrims, like those to the spiritual heights of Koyasan, would have faced the animosities of the natural world without the benefit of divine protection or wizardry. The notion of companionship on a spiritual journey is a recurring theme on Mount Koya.

*The moss-covered roof of a reliquary in Okunoin. (©Stephen Mansfield)*

Lively Place of Pilgrimage

Many of the white-clad pilgrims who stream through the town in the direction of Okunoin, a cryptomeria forest that is also a massive graveyard, place of worship, and repository for religious reliquaries, have dōgyō ninin (twin-person group) printed on their clothing. The words express the conviction that they are not alone, but making a pilgrimage in the company of none other than Kukai himself.

A truly remarkable man for his time, the future saint, a gifted scholar and calligrapher who traveled extensively in China, is credited with founding Japan's first public school, and inventing the 'hiragana' syllabary. Hundreds of priests, monks and novices minister to the needs of the temples and the generous devotees of Kukai. They have somehow managed to make this complex look opulent but feel like a place of privation.

*Pilgrims ascend through Okunoin. (©Stephen Mansfield)*

Koyasan's reputation as a Japanese Lhasa may precede it. But I was beginning to find that, like all such places, the mountain is inhabited by the living, a small but energetic number of residents. Koyasan has its shops, markets, a junior high school, a baseball ground, clusters of souvenir stores, restaurants, cafes, parking lots, even a pachinko parlor, whose rows of seated devotees appear to be experiencing a state not too far from the Zen concept of mushin, or "no-mindedness."

*Cleansing Buddhas outside the Hall of Lanterns. (©Stephen Mansfield)*

Far from being oppressive, I'm struck by how lively and upbeat the place is, with young monks whizzing around on scooters, robed priests commandeering small pickup trucks for deliveries, and nuns filing along streets, not with their heads bowed, but peering inquisitively around at the fresh visitors from both Japan and abroad.

*Visitors walk past the great wooden structures of Koyasan. (©Stephen Mansfield)*

Koyasan Treasures

There is a great deal to take in on the mountain, but most visitors try to include the Reihokan (Treasure House) in their busy itineraries. Ideally, its huge collection of artworks should be left to the end. Its best-known treasures, such as the Reclining Image of Sakyamuni Buddha on His Last Day, and the sensual Eight Guardian Deities, make a fitting coda to time spent in these mystic mountains.

*Banryutei, supposedly Japan's largest stone garden, in the grounds of the Kongobun-ji temple. (©Stephen Mansfield)*

*Another view into Banryutai's stone garden, in the grounds of the Kongobun-ji temple. (©Stephen Mansfield)*

Besides the private gardens attached to temple lodgings, there are other landscapes of interest. What the Banryutei garden at Kongobu-ji Temple lacks in subtlety, it makes up for in symbolism and scale.

*A recently built temple in the Garan area of Koyasan, but one conforming to traditional design principles. (©Stephen Mansfield)*

As the largest stone garden in Japan, the rocks are said to represent a pair of dragons emerging through a sea of clouds. The dragons serve to guard Kukai's mausoleum. Carried there upon his death, in the very same meditation posture that he remains in now, the saint is believed to be alive, sunk in contemplation, aiding all living beings. Two meals are served to him daily.

Old Growth Forests

In another garden of sorts, the forest graveyard known as Okunoin, the mystic core of Koyasan, the smell of incense, of Buddhism itself, is pervasive.

*A tori gate, tombstones, and towering cryptomeria trees in the massive Okunoin Cemetery. (©Stephen Mansfield)*

The faith holds that one's karma can be improved by the burning of incense. Other religious notions compare the life of humans to the evanescent smoke from sticks of incense. Traditionally, incense was used to summon spirits but also to repel malign forces that held sway over diseases. The spirits of men who had sold bad incense for profit, deformed into incense-eating goblins, were believed to haunt the burning sticks, their only source of nourishment.

Old-growth forests are a rarity in Japan. Walking here beneath the towering cypresses and broad-leafed trees of the great cemetery feels like a privileged experience.

Forests have invaded family plots, creating shady, humid patches of moss, fern, and lichen. The trunks of cedar trees have also been requisitioned by the graveyard, serving as sheltered hollows for Jizo-san statues, mortuary tablets, and flattened stone Buddhas.

*Ancient Buddha images in the depths of Okunoin. (©Stephen Mansfield)*

A Living Cemetery

This mutual infiltration has created a strange oxymoron: a living cemetery of cobbled, gnarled paths through the forest ending at the Lantern Hall. Several thousand lights burn here. One, astonishingly, has been kept illuminated since 1016, another from 1088, the early years of the Norman Conquest in Britain.

On the altars and temples here, powdered incense is poured over hot coals, creating a unique aroma. There are no weeds on Koyasan. The moss, and leafy, vine-like overhangs above tombs may look like the result of neglect. But this is a deliberately tolerated effect, reflecting an aesthetic found, for example, in the Japanese tea garden.

Although Koyasan has long discovered the benefits of tourism, its temples, gardens, and sacred spots speak of a different, quieter age. As the American writer Donald Richie expressed it in an essay on the mountain, "This is enough ー this escape into the past, into an age where faith is possible."