Koya San

Koya San

高野山

After several hours of travelling on the Shinkansen, I reached the last leg of my journey, a 10 minute cable car journey up the steep side of the mountain. The mountain scenery was beautiful and the whole place felt a world away from Tokyo.

One of Koya San's biggest attractions is the opportunity to spend the night in one of the many Buddhist temples which are dotted along the main street. Decide the slightly higher price of this accommodation, I decided to take advantage of this unique opportunity and had booked myself for a night at the Shojoshin-in temple.

Shojoshin-in was originally constructed in 1590 and is one of the oldest temples on the mountain.

The temple was very traditional in feel with it's sliding panel doors and tatami mats.

My room was simple, consisting of only a futon on the ground and a small table, but it was actually incredibly comfortable and inviting. The room included some nice Japanese cakes and tea as well as a balcony with  a pretty view of the garden below.

The temple's garden (as seen from the ground level).

Part of the temple stay included a meal of shojin-royori being prepared for you. The meal was completely vegetarian (being a Buddhist temple) and consisted of  about ten-fifteen small dishes which were brought to me on four different trays.

The meal included all sorts of dishes including tofu, jellies, vegetable tempura, miso soup, red beans, fresh fruit and a huge array of interesting things I'd never seen before which came in a huge variety of shapes and colours. Everything I ate was really delicious and I felt pretty full by the end!

One of the biggest draws of the temple I chose was its location. Shojoshin-in was located right next to the Okunoin graveyard, a huge cemetery with over 200,000 gravestones and hundreds, if not thousands of impossibly tall cedar trees. The graveyard was incredibly picturesque and had a really ancient feel to it, with many of the trees and tombstones being covered in moss. I went for a quick walk along the graveyard path as the sunset and the (electric) patterns were lit before heading home for a long relaxing sleep.

The next morning started bright and early with a 5am Buddhist ritual which we were invited to watch. Although the ritual was interesting, and it was very kind of the monks to allow people to watch, it mostly involved watching the monks kneeling in a room repeating chants and reading from a book for about forty five minutes. The room we were in was beautiful and I don't regret going, although admittedly after the first fifteen minutes or so it did become a little repetitive and I was definitely ready for breakfast by the end of the ceremony.

Breakfast was in a similar vein to dinner (breakfast in Asia doesn't contrast to lunch and dinner to the same extent that it does in the west), again consisting of a bunch of small vegetarian dishes, and was equally delicious. After eating my fill, I backed my backpack in my room and headed out to fully explore the Okunoin graveyard in the light of day.

The graveyard was even more beautiful in the day time and it was difficult not to stop every few metres to take another picture of the things around me. I've tried to select only my favourites for here!

Even sacred Buddhist cemeteries can't escape the draw of corporations and there were a number of more modern looking cemeteries built by various well-known companies.

As you can see, statues were everywhere! Many of them were wearing hats and pieces of fabric, like the one above, and had small offerings of food and sake placed in front of them.

The path through the cemetery.

The other end of the cemetery contained Koyasan's most sacred site, the Mausoleum of Kobo Daishi. Kobo Daishi is the founder of Shingon Buddhism which spread the belief that enlightenment could be achieved by followers in just one life time. The whole temple complex at Koyasan was started by Kobo Daishi and he is apparently a very revered figure throughout Japan. Kobo Daishi is believed to have never died, but instead is still thought to be living in the Mausoleum in eternal meditation. 

Near the entrance to the path to the Mausoleum, there were a number of people splashing water at various statues, apparently to pray for deceased family members.

A sign at the entrance to the Mausoleum area requested that visitors don't take any pictures, due to the sacred nature of the site, so unfortunately I can't show you the mausoleum itself. The Mausoleum area contained one main building with a number of ancient lanterns donated from a number of Japanese emperors, dating back to hundreds of years ago. There was also a small room, known as the hall of lanterns, which consisted entirely of glowing orange lanterns that covered the walls and ceiling.

After leaving the mausoleum area, I headed back through the graveyard to the main street of Koyasan, stopping for a few more pictures along the way...

I noticed this small rock which I think illustrates the extent to which Kobo Daishi is revered by his followers.

Along with the cemetery, Koya-san also holds a number of other world heritage temples which I decided to visit before temple fatigue began to kick in.

Kongobuji Temple, which was originally constructed in 1593 is the most famous temple on the mountain and contained many beautiful painted sliding doors as well as a pretty rock garden.

An example of the kitchen used to make the food served by and to the monks.

After Kongobuji, I headed to the Reihokan museum which houses some of the religious treasures of Koyasan. 

There were a number of statues and pieces of artwork inside, and I spoke to an elderly Japanese couple who were very excited in my interest in learning about Buddhism.

Koyasan Ganjo-Daran added a splash of colour to the dark wooden temples which made up most of the buildings in the area.

After seeing all the temples I wanted to see, I stumbled upon the beginning (well, end I guess) of the pilgrimage trails you can take to come up to the mountain.

I decided to walk a little down the trail a little and take in the beautiful natural scenery. The entire trail is 23.5km long and takes 7 hours to hike so I decided not to do the whole thing, but walked down for about half an hour before heading back up. The trail was almost completely empty and incredibly peaceful.

At the top of the trail, there was a great view of the cloud covered mountains, although unfortunately it was hard to find a good spot to capture the view.

By the time I got back to the top of the trail, it was approaching mid afternoon and with Osaka still a few hours away, I decided it was time to head back to the cable car and make my descent down from Koya San.