Pilgrimages and Spiritual Quests in Japan: Part 1

 Part I  Pilgrimages, paths and places

                                 1  Travel as spiritual quest in Japan

                                     Peter Ackermann

                                       Introduction

This chapter wishes to introduce the important terms related to pilgrimage in Japan. At

the same time the concepts of pilgrimage, travel and quest as they materialize within

Japanese culture need to be contextualized within the framework of Buddhist thinking,

arguably the foundation upon which Japanese identity and life design has been shaped.

   Buddhism is not always recognized or given credit for its fundamental role in Japanese

society. This is partly because some insist that Shintō should be considered as separate

from and at the same time older than Buddhism and therefore more basic. Buddhism

indeed amalgamated elements—some of them very old—from a vast array of East-Asian

traditions of thought, becoming extremely complex and difficult to define in the process.

Moreover, Buddhism has not been an official religion in Japan like Christianity was in

the West.1 Yet the fact that Japan has not had an official religious doctrine may be

considered the very reason why Buddhist thought, on the level of everyday common

sense and outside conceptual problems created by the acceptance or rejection of doctrine

and belief, has more precisely and more decisively shaped Japanese patterns of thinking

throughout the ages than anything else. Buddhism, in other words, I take to be the major

and at the same time unquestioned source for day-to-day solutions to the problems of life,

and as a guiding principle for the structure of life’s quests. How, then, can the structures

of life’s quests, pilgrimage and the concept of travel be linked together?

                                     Travel in context

Travel in Japanese history falls broadly into two categories. On the one hand it was a

means of getting from one place to another. Examples are the transport of goods (in early

times often tribute), the voyage to a place of assignment, or the way of life of a travelling

merchant or salesman. On the other hand, however, what I would like to call ‘spiritual

journeys’ play an important role in East-Asian culture quite generally. Thus, for many

hundreds of years, the people of Japan have undertaken journeys for spiritual gain, and

these can be seen to possess characteristic structural patterns.

   A first decisive point to understand is that nature (that includes villages and towns

together with the life and housing styles of the people) is believed to contain the energies

of the universe in a concrete way. Therefore nature always ‘speaks’, that is, it gives the

careful observer clear indications of its principles. If we explain the energies of the

universe as the flow of yin and yang and the continuous process of transformation

(minutely dealt with in the context of divination), or if we think of the many kinds of

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    4

charts produced by Buddhist institutions, which always must be interpreted with

reference to concrete points in nature, i.e. in time and space (calendars, geomantic charts

or charts for ancient Asian medical treatment, etc.), then I think we can grasp in what

sense nature is conceived of as a context in which such energies are at work.

    To understand the relationship between nature and Buddhist teaching we need to

reflect upon the fact that nature mirrors the law of cause and effect. This law can be seen

to take shape in and through nature in a myriad of different ways: for instance it can be

embodied in a warbler, being aroused as a cause of the increasing warmth (i.e. yang

energy) of the second month; or in the vivid red colour of the maple leaves, thought of as

being caused by the increasing cold (i.e. the increase of yin energy). To intuitively grasp

the law of the universe and with it Buddhist teaching, it is necessary to travel to specific

spots in nature traditionally known to be helpful for achieving a deeper understanding of

it. These spots, in other words, can be said to aid human beings in their efforts to cope

with the law of cause and effect (the law of the universe) in order to survive.

    As we know, journeys for seeking pleasure (from the healing at hot springs to the

release of sexual pleasure) have always been a prominent feature of Japanese culture. The

laws of the universe being, by definition, present in everything, it is a matter of

interpretation how far these places of pleasure are defined as Buddhist, and how far the

comfort experienced there is taken to be an act of ordering the flow of energies within

one’s body, and overcoming the state of suffering caused by disruption of the flow.

However, even if Buddhist teaching defines places which arouse your emotion as places

of illusion, or even as bad places, they are still understood to contain the seeds of

salvation. They may be bad, but coming to understand this is the first step to

enlightenment and will cultivate detachment. Bad places thus become good places.

    The path to enlightenment, in other words, is a path of transformation, a sequence of

stations in which seeds of Buddhist truth cause the onward journey. Basically, all human

beings start out on their path full of bonnō (earthly passions and desires), which cause

spiritual and physical suffering and impede the quest for enlightenment. According to the

expression bonnō sunawachi bodai (desire is nothing else than enlightenment), one can

indeed attain enlightenment, not by extinguishing, but by gradually transforming illusions

and desires into enlightened wisdom.

    Throughout the ages, journeys have been undertaken, either physically or mentally

(i.e. in pictures, stories, poetry or songs), that follow this pattern of transformation,

adding up, one by one, the things understood at each specific station. Put another way,

movement from place to place always implies spiritual process, whereby the careful

observer comes to understand the essence of, and the reasons for, suffering. A good

example may be the poet Bashō (1644–1694), who—emulating Japan’s most famous

traveller, Saigyō (1118–1190)—passes places where nature shows the changing

constellations of its energies against the background of the cycle of growth and decay In

the process the poet is continuously confronted with the concept of time, the past, the

present, and the future. Precisely the experience of time, both in its positive sense

(enjoying the moment) and its negative sense (the frantic wish to cling to the moment or

even return to the past), brings about the understanding that one is caught in the karmic

cycle, blinded by physical and emotional attachment (shūnen, shūchaku). Only through

detachment, however, are spiritual growth, enlightenment and achievement of

Buddhahood possible. This understanding, to repeat, can in traditional Japanese common

                           Travel as spiritual quest in Japan    5

sense only be gained by ‘wide awake’ movement through time and space, that is, by

means of a journey, even if this journey is only imagined.

    Saigyō, whose reflections on this law and the intuitive grasp of its principles are

documented in his poems, ‘left his house and home’ (shukke) in 1140 CE. On a

superficial level, this shukke took him to Tōhoku, Mt. Kōya, Shikoku, Ise, and again to

Tōhoku. On a deeper level, however, shukke took him on a journey that opened his eyes

to the reality of growth and decay, and brought him to realize the fundamental

importance of detachment.

    Shukke implies entering Buddha’s way by making the decision to leave all one loves

and hates behind and setting out to seek enlightenment through ascetic exercises and

training (shugyō). Certainly, this concept of setting out must not only be interpreted in

terms of coping with growth and decay in this life, it must also be understood against the

background of the notion of rinne (the transmigration of the soul and the repeated cycles

of life, death and rebirth). Setting out on a journey marked by exercises and efforts is thus

an act whose relevance, in theory at least, transcends a person’s own this-worldly

physical identity.

    As pointed out above, setting out on a journey is not detachment, it is a path to

detachment, and this in turn is a process of transformation through training, a process

characterized by steps and stations that each in their own way force the traveller to deal

with the question of how to detach himself.

                         Traditions of leaving house and home

Japan once knew—and to a limited degree still knows—a large variety of persons who

set out from home and ‘went into the wilderness’. Many of these people led a life as

wandering priests, often selling certain products as well as knowledge—mainly related to

curing sickness and bringing relief from all imaginable kinds of suffering—in order to

earn a livelihood. Japanese art traditions (theatre, music, painting, etc.), for instance, can

only be understood by reference to the teachings of these detached persons, wandering or

cloistered priests and monks, holy men, but also persons with magic powers, healing

men, medicine priests, exorcists and many others known as hijiri (persons with magic

powers, sages, masters), shami (young persons doing shugyō, also: married monks), inja

(literally persons in hiding, usually in the mountains) or gyōja (persons who are

achieving, or have achieved, powers by doing shugyō, persons being led—often in the

mountains—from hardship to hardship). The expression sen (or sennin), referring more

specifically to the Taoist recluse, also should be mentioned here.

    In contrast to monks in the strict sense of the word, whose duties required them always

to be part of a cloistered community, the numerous forms of wandering monks or priests

referred to as yugyō hijiri (hijiri who move around freely) can, I maintain, be seen as the

real source of popular culture, culture to which the common people had access and that

formed their most basic values and patterns of thinking. Some yugyō hijiri regarded

themselves as embodiments of Amida Buddha, adopted the element ‘-ami’ in their

names, were granted protection by specific temples or feudal lords and became well-

known masters of traditions such as Nō theatre, which was the creation mainly of

Kan’ami (1333–1384) and his son Zeami (approx. 1363–approx. 1443).

                       Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan     6

   Naturally there is a relationship between wandering ‘spiritual men’ (women also are

known to have wandered, e.g. the bikuni of Kumano, or the original Kabuki dancers) and

the spread of knowledge about sacred places. These sacred places were believed to grant

good health, provide cures for diseases and, as an extension of this, wealth and happiness.

On a deeper level, they would (or at least theoretically should) help in understanding the

ephemeral nature of all things (mujō), thus bringing about detachment from the karmic

cycle of growth and decay.

                       Movement as a sequence of spiritual steps

It is no coincidence that Japanese descriptions of journeys and travel place great

emphasis on the stations leading a traveller somewhere. This focus on, and interest in,

stations is so strong that we are often under the impression of dealing with the pure

accumulation of pictures, texts or data that have little or no coherence—a criticism that is,

for instance, often levelled at Japanese literature. However, to set out on a journey means

to discover the infinite and unexpected ways in which the energies of the universe

become form, and the opportunity to practise detachment and be healed—or feel better—

as one goes along. Often, an individual step towards detachment need not be more than

just the vague sense of having discovered something, and (as poetry and discovery are

closely related in Japanese culture) perhaps capturing this something in a haiku.

    The notion of steps and stations (towards detachment and thus enlightenment), to

repeat, is a very basic one in Japanese culture. Accordingly, steps form the framework for

all learning—traditional musical pieces contain a dan (step-for-step) structure, as do the

martial arts, travel literature, collections of poetry, or the famous 53 Stations of the

Tōkaidō by the woodcut print master Hiroshige (1797–1858). The pattern of expression

is always the same: it is the description of a path, on which insight after insight is added

by making careful observations and appropriate efforts.

    Against this background it is possible to fathom the deeper implications of pilgrimage,

which can at the same time be understood as a path to enlightenment and a path to good

health and good fortune. Historically, a particularly important type of pilgrimage was the

journey into the Kumano Mountains. These mountains were associated with concepts of

paradise (at the goal, Kumano Hongū) and the help of numerous ōji (princes) along the

way, important landmarks being the waterfall at Nachi or the Healing Buddha (Yakushi

Nyorai) at Shingū Hayatama Jinja. Local yamabushi (mountain priests, mountain

ascetics, also known as Buddhist masters of exorcism) and bikuni (Buddhist nuns) would

lead the pilgrims—including emperors—along the paths that helped to grasp the meaning

of imprisonment in the karmic cycle (i.e. the inability to understand the illusionary nature

of the concrete world), and thus to attain the true meaning of detachment.

    The Kumano pilgrimages were most popular during the Kamakura period (1192–

1333). In the early nineteenth century there were still around 14,000 pilgrims to the

Kumano Mountains per year. One of the final steps of the Kumano pilgrimage, namely

Nachi with its waterfall, is also the first station of one of the best known pilgrim routes in

Japan, that covering the 33 temples of Kannon in Western Japan (Saigoku or Saikoku) in

the present-day prefectures of Wakayama, Osaka, Nara, Kyōto city, Kyōto prefecture,

Shiga, Hyōgo and Gifu. This pilgrimage of temples dedicated to the bodhisattva

                          Travel as spiritual quest in Japan   7

Kannon,2 who takes 33 forms in order to help mankind, is a typical junrei, a pilgrimage

following a precise sequence of steps.

                                          Junrei

Moving through time and space and the step-for-step process of seeking relief and

enlightenment by following Buddhist teaching and/or the teachings of wise men of old

(who in turn had followed Buddhist teachings) is, I maintain, the basic idea of spiritual

journey in Japanese culture. Accordingly, I see junrei, i.e. moving through time and space

from station to station, as the basic form of travel for spiritual gain. We may note here

that the concept of junrei was so fundamental that all sorts of devices were sought to

enable people to undertake junrei even if they could not visit the famous sites themselves.

One device was utsushi, the transfer of the power of the original sites to corresponding

sites more easily accessible. The best known utsushi are those of the 33 Kannon

sanctuaries of Western Japan to Bandō and to Chichibu in eastern Japan, or of the 88

stations of the Shikoku pilgrimage to the small island of Shōdoshima. Another common

device was the transfer of soil from the original site to a neighbourhood temple, enabling

the junrei to be performed in miniature.

                                           Main

As a rule, junrei consist of a series of visits (mairi) to places possessing the power to

heal, to help, to guide, to bring something to awareness and to free from frustration,

which is a state of mind that quite particularly hinders detachment. With time, numerous

mairi themselves, i.e. the visit to just one specific place of ‘power’, became the object of

making a journey. Mairi (or the honorific expression o-mairi), can also be spoken of as

sankei (visit to a sanctuary) or sanpai (paying respects to a sanctuary). Examples for

well-known mairi in Japanese history are those to Narita, Zenkōji (Nagano), Atsuta,

Tateyama, Hikosan, Sumiyoshi, Kiso Ontake, Daisen, Konpira, and above all Ise.

   Mairi to Ise, originally a place where the ancestors of the emperor were worshipped,

became popular towards the end of the Heian period (794–1192 CE) when special guides

(known as o-shi) were sent out to attract supporters for the Ise sanctuary where the sun

goddess Amaterasu (or Shinmei-sama) was venerated. As early as the Muromachi period

(1336–1573) a visit to Ise was seen to have the highest priority in a person’s life. During

the Kyōho era (1716–1735) of the Edo period (1603–1867) it is assumed that about

500,000 to 600,000 people travelled there. Moreover, Ise can easily be termed old

Japan’s most ‘intra-national’ centre, as it was here that people from all parts of the

country met and exchanged not only knowledge of local histories and news but also of all

sorts of arts and crafts.

   It also should be mentioned here that those who journeyed throughout Japan to

advertise Ise brought miyage (today the common expression for a little present brought

back from a trip or a visit) with them, consisting of a wide variety of amulets, charms,

books and products made or collected in Ise. The term miyage is also used for local

products and the amulets, charms and talismans (o-fuda, o-mamori) brought home from

Ise (and other sanctuaries) by persons sent there on behalf of whole communities.

                       Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    8

   Pilgrimages, especially to Ise, appear also to have been the way for a considerable

percentage of the population to obtain permission to travel. And, last but not least, the

connection between Ise and nuke-mairi (secret visit to a sanctuary) shows that in the Edo

period the journey to Ise was a way for couples to elope without committing a punishable

offence.

                                            Kō

At least a short reference should also be made to the term kō, denoting a group of people

with a common aim—an association. Kō were organizations that planned and prepared

pilgrimages, the best known ones being the Ise-kō (or Shinmei-kō: kō for the visit of

Shinmei-sama, i.e. the sun goddess Amaterasu). Ise-kō came into existence in large

numbers in the early Muromachi period and were organizations, usually centred upon a

particular o-shi (guide) from Ise, which organized and financed journeys to Ise either for

groups of villagers, or for a representative of a village.

   The importance of kō cannot be stressed enough, as they have constituted the focal

point of a community where funds were raised, help was distributed, and a large variety

of undertakings were organized and paid for. To what extent the kō—indeed until very

recently—retained their primary function as an organizational framework specifically for

visits to a religious site, however, can be seen, for instance, by studying the stone tablets

set up by all sorts of different kō along the path to the sanctuary on the peak of Mt.

Mitake near Tokyo.

                                        Conclusion

As an afterthought, I believe we should be only moderately optimistic with regard to

grasping more than just a few fundamental notions about spiritual journeys in Japan. For

one thing, the Buddhist concept of journey has been quite considerably modified by many

different schools of teaching. Furthermore, on the level of interpretation, ideas rooted in

Buddhism have become obscured by the decades of State Shintō's systematic efforts at

establishing mystical Japaneseness in the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth

centuries. Few Japanese realize today that even Ise, where the idea of Shintō and the

primacy of indigenous over foreign deities was propagated as early as the Muromachi

period, cannot be understood without reference to that immense framework of Buddhism

that served to transmit systematic concepts of the structure of the universe.

   Moreover, our task is made particularly difficult, since in order to grasp the ideas

underlying the concept of journey in Japan it may indeed be necessary to look back

mainly at the centuries prior to the Edo period, i.e. prior to 1603. The more recent

centuries quite clearly make use of, play with, and reinterpret the given Buddhist

substratum, which in the process certainly changed its surface structure—a point we can

fathom if we, for instance, juxtapose the older Nō and the younger Kabuki forms of

Japanese theatre.

   However, if we keep our eyes open there are still plenty of objects we can find and

buy today that inform us of the Buddhist view of the structure of time and space—we

need just to study the materials sold at a temple shop. Moreover, the fundamental

                            Travel as spiritual quest in Japan       9

concepts of journey are still there, and remain more or less intact. We need only to think

of how deeply ingrained feelings are about the importance and even training of

detachment (especially emotional detachment) in everyday Japanese life, or of the idea of

step-by-step transformation that always observes, reflects upon and accepts lower, ‘bad’

stations as containing the seeds for improvement and enlightenment. This, I maintain, is

what physical or imagined journeys in Japan are really all about.

                                              Notes

  1 If we want to speak of an ‘official doctrine’ in Japan then it has been, for almost a millennium,

      Nee-Confucianism, i.e. the teaching of Shushi/Zhu Xi (1130–1200 CE), which left its

      imprint mainly in concepts of social order.

  2 A bodhisattva is one who aspires to Buddhahood, i.e. to enlightenment, and carries out

      altruistic practices, but postpones their own entry into nirvana in order to save others;

      compassion is the bodhisattva’s greatest characteristic.

 2  Pilgrimage roads in Spain and Japan

                                   Jesus González Valles

                           Introduction: The road to Santiago

The phenomenon of pilgrimage has existed for centuries in both the East and West, and

the subject of pilgrimage can be a point of reference when talking about intercultural and

inter-religious dialogue. In this chapter I wish to offer a comparative analysis of the

cultural and religious expressions that structure the paths of pilgrimage in Spain and

Japan. According to Christian tradition, Saint James was one of the disciples chosen by

Christ to be an apostle and spread his message. There is also a legend that the apostle

James preached the doctrine of Jesus in Spain. The story is that once James returned to

Jerusalem, he was decapitated by the King Herod, around the year 42 CE, and his

remains were transferred to the northwest of the Roman colony Hispania, now Galicia,

where they were buried in a simple and discrete way by Christians. When the sepulchre

was discovered by Teodomiro, the Bishop of Iria Flavia around the year 813 CE, King

Alfonso II ordered the construction of a little basilica over the tomb. Later, between the

ninth and eleventh centuries, the basilica was replaced with a much larger one. Around

this church the city of Santiago de Compostela was to take shape.

   When the news of the location of the tomb of the apostle Saint James spread, pilgrims

from all of Christian Europe started to visit it, thus initiating a pilgrimage route that had,

as its final destination, the end of the West’s known lands—as its Roman name, Finis

terrae (lit. land’s end) so well demonstrates. Thus began the pilgrimage route to the tomb

of the apostle Santiago, which has been witness to ten centuries of religiosity and cultural

tradition. Visited by millions of travellers, it has a deep historic meaning and a cultural

dimension that are worth considering.

                                    Historical meaning

Encouraged by the monks of Cluny and sponsored by various Popes and protected by the

kings of various Spanish Kingdoms, the pilgrimage to Compostela has attracted millions

of people. Soon groups of pilgrims formed, such as the one run by the French Bishop

Gotescaldo in the year 950 CE, and the one organized by Cesáreo, Abbot of Montserrat,

in 959 CE. In the eleventh century, the route of Saint James acquired a special

prominence due to the massive participation of pilgrims from the areas of Europe now

known as France, Germany and Italy, as well as continuing to attract Christian pilgrims

from the kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. Among the pilgrims there were people from

different social strata: bishops, magnates, kings, nobles, peasants, priests, saints,

criminals—women as well as men. In the twelfth century, the arrival of pilgrims in

                        Pilgrimage roads in Spain and Japan     11

Compostela was so overwhelming that the priest Aymeric Picuad found it necessary to

write a guide in 1139 CE. Along with a number of other documents, this guide is known

as Codex Calixtinus, in honour of Pope Calixto II, promoter of the route of Saint James.

    Among the pilgrims, who—as mentioned—might include repentant criminals, there

could be found, travelling in disguise, others not driven by religious motifs and perhaps

intent on robbery and other actions that had nothing to do with devotion to the apostle. So

it was not unusual to encounter thieves or highwaymen who took advantage of lonely

places or defenceless inns in order to practise their profession. This is the reason why

various rulers were obliged to create severe laws and to provide armed watchmen along

specific dangerous routes in order to guarantee the pilgrims’ security. In the popular

tradition there are historical stories or legends about some of the characters who caused

the authorities a lot of concern. In order to defend themselves from these highwaymen,

the pilgrims used to walk in groups. When they left their hometowns, they were seen off

by all their neighbours, blessed by the priest and provided with the emblems or garments

of pilgrimage: a hat, a bangle, a gourd to carry water and a long walking stick for support

and defence against vermin, dogs and wild animals.

    The journey to Santiago de Compostela could start from Arles, Le Puy, Vézelay,

Orleans or other French localities. All these roads converged in Roncesvalles, where the

actual pilgrim’s route, explained in detail in the five books of the Codex Calixtinus,

began. In this text the author gives information on the areas that the road to Santiago

went through; hospitals, hostels and other places for accommodation and protection are

named, and information is given on the flow of rivers, the location of bridges, typical

food, the character of locals, geographical distances and an endless number of

topographic, ethnological and historical curiosities. The itinerary offers a whole range of

charming landscapes in which man, driven by religious feeling and artistic inspiration,

had built the most diverse monumental works: churches, monasteries, hermitages,

hospitals, inns, transepts, tombstones, sculptures as well as a series of amazing

engineering feats which included the roadways and bridges themselves.

    Over the centuries, the original road has suffered changes and even diversions, but the

pilgrim who today follows the route of the Codex Calixtinus does so in the footsteps of

earlier visitors to Santiago. Thus, a modern traveller has the chance to take the primitive

paths, asphalted roads or modern ways designed for the exclusive use of walking

travellers or bicyclists. On the classic Spanish route, the traveller has to walk through

seven provinces in order to reach Santiago de Compostela. Pilgrims who have not only a

religious purpose, but who also harbour touristic intentions or are fond of art, can take

time to contemplate the works of art that are found along the borders and in the

surroundings of the route throughout the whole journey. There are an endless number of

important milestones for the traveller to take note of along the more than 800-kilometre

long journey: in Navarra there are the monasteries of Leire and Estella; in La Rioja,

Logroño, Nájera, Santo Domingo de la Calzada; in Burgos, the cathedral, the monastery

of Huelgas, the King’s Hospital; in Palencia, Frómista, Villasirga, Carrión de los Condes;

in León: the cathedral, Astorga and Ponferrada; and once in Galician lands: Portomarín,

or Melide y Santiago de Compostela.

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                                    Cultural encounters

The road to Santiago is not only a simple geographic route that runs from Roncesvalles to

Compostela, but it has also always been a locus for the encounter of cultures. Along the

paths to Santiago, there always reigned a sense of openness to universality because so

many travellers from different societies made the journey. Europe found in this

Compostelan road a vista of human communication, cultural exchange and, in short,

fraternity and solidarity. The groups of pilgrims interacted and shared their suffering—

exhaustion, natural disasters—as well as the material goods that each of them carried in

their packs and the spiritual insights that they harboured in their souls.

    This intercultural meeting created a specific cultural environment, since everyone

contributed their experiences or knowledge as well as literary and poetic inspirations to

enhance the dynamism of the encounters during the long and arid journey. Romanesque

art, for example, was developed along the road to Santiago thanks to these cultural

exchanges. Both religious and civil architecture knew ages of splendour with the

cathedrals, hospitals, monuments, roadways and bridges, all built along the way.

Sculpture reached unsurpassable heights in Silos, Burgos, and in León, not to mention the

cathedral in Compostela itself. Painting was enriched by influences that emerged in

diverse nuanced and stylistic analogies. Literature flourished with the formation of the

chanson de geste and the Galician and Castilian lyric. To sum up, the road to Santiago

gave rise to a cultural inheritance of inestimable value.

    The paths of Saint James also had a social, as well as a pacifying and unifying

dimension, because they made possible the repopulation of many places and

environments in the areas surrounding the Compostelan roads. Centuries before anyone

had thought of a European Community, for instance, there existed roads of different

origins: some roads ran through what is modern France, or Portugal, and some through

modern-day Spain. All of these merged into one that brought together all the religious

and cultural essences coming from the most diverse European points, constituting an

appropriate framework for peace and dialogue among peoples. Unfortunately history

shows outrageous examples of disunion, conflicts, wars among European peoples, but

there was the road to Santiago which was something like a simple and popular ‘European

Parliament’.

    Even though the cultural and social elements are important, one cannot ignore the

religious foundations of the paths to Santiago, embedded as they are within Christian

faith and its beliefs. In essence, the St. James’s road is not a ludic route nor a tourist

pilgrimage, although there is a lot of that as well. It is eminently a religious pilgrimage, in

which pilgrims do not go to Santiago de Compostela to see museums, but to testify to

their religious faith.

    The pilgrimage style, found for ten centuries on the Compostelan road, was rooted in

this Christian tradition and gave rise to a fertile spiritual and cultural exchange among

European peoples. In fact, Christian European peoples: Celts, Latins, Germanic peoples,

Slavs, Anglo Saxons, to name some of the larger ethnic distinctions made at that time, all

met along the pilgrimage road to Santiago de Compostela.

                         Pilgrimage roads in Spain and Japan       13

                                Pilgrimage roads in Japan

In Japan there exists a rich religious and cultural heritage created along the pilgrimage

roads that are testament to Buddhist fervour. As with the road to Santiago, we can trace a

historical and a cultural perspective. Of all these Japanese pilgrimages, the one to

Shikoku, described below, is the most familiar to me because I have observed many times

the spectacle of travellers reaching the Ishite temple from Matsuyama, which is number

51 of the stages comprising the whole journey of the 88 Buddhist temples located along

the 1,374-kilometre trail. Sometimes they were pilgrims in modern style, who had

travelled by train, bus or car, but in general, they were pilgrims in the old style, orthodox

and, as it seemed, convinced of the efficacy of the sacred pilgrimage. The o-henro in their

white clothes, with their sacred staffs, Buddhist rosaries, bells, badges, official cards and

rucksacks, were amazing to behold, as was the display of a sincere, sacrificial and joyful

piety. The participants in these long walks were usually elderly people whose dream had

been to visit, at least once in their life, the 88 temples of the island, as their ancestors had

done since the Kamakura period (thirteenth/fourteenth century), during which the number

of stages along the route was fixed. The fact that the pilgrims walked to the rhythm of

sutras being chanted or prayers recited gave the journey an air of happiness and deep-felt

emotion.

                                 The historical dimension

From the Nara period (710–794 CE) the pilgrimages to shrines and Buddhist temples

spread out along the Japanese islands are well documented. Especially famous were the

already mentioned Shikoku route, the 33 sacred sites of western Japan (Saigoku) and

Chichibu, the 21 temples of Nichiren, the 25 temples of Honen, the 24 of Shinran, and the

100 of Kyoto, among others. The words junrei [circular pilgrimage], o-henro [pilgrim to

the 88 temples of Shikoku] or tera-meguri [going round to visit temples] evoke a

sensation of long and difficult walks while searching for sacred places, and they have a

deep spiritual meaning, standing for the encounter with cultural forms that transcend

everyday life. Of course these journeys have, throughout the history of Japan, a wider

dimension than just the religious one. The notion of road, the Japanese michi, also

includes the notion of dynamism and vitality as well as lived experiences. Japanese

history is full of examples of travellers searching for enlightenment while walking along

simple, silent, peaceful roads.

    The pilgrimage route of Shikoku island flourished mainly during the Edo period

(seventeenth to mid-nineteenth century) and followed the footsteps of the great patriarch

of the Japanese Buddhism, Kōbō-daishi (774–835 CE), who actually was born on the

island. Even today, along the itinerary one can discover steep inclines and sharp descents,

smooth paths and narrow lanes, rice fields and leafy woods, all leading to the 88 temples

that form this spectacular Buddhist pilgrimage. From the first temple, the Reisan-ji, to the

last one, the Ōkubo-ji, devout Buddhists go singing laudatory sutras and prayers that

vary, depending on the powers attributed to each shrine. As a matter of fact, each shrine

has its assigned attributes related to granting favours, such as abundant catches of fish,

good harvests, health, or happy childbirth, etc.

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    14

   At the same time, as one walks it is possible to contemplate a number of religious art

masterpieces, part of the inheritance from the past which forms a rich artistic treasury. So

not only do the Japanese pilgrims venerate the Buddha, but at the same time, they pay

homage to their cultural legacy while enjoying the beauty of the landscape that shapes the

road. This religious road was inaugurated centuries ago by the spiritually restless who

were searching for liberation and salvation. In fact, the historical trajectory of the

different Japanese pilgrimages is directly related to the search for enlightenment and for

help from Buddhist saints.

                                  Cultural dimensions

In the same way that a variety of cultural works in the environs of the road to Santiago

can be found, so are cultural manifestations of an artistic and literary type numerous

along the Japanese pilgrims’ routes. Kōbō-daishi himself is an example of cultural

creativity. While still young, he undertook a pilgrimage in the provinces of the island of

Shikoku (giving rise to the pilgrimage route of the 88 temples). After that he went to

China, and on returning to Japan, he created a version of esoteric Buddhism that would

crystallize in the sect called Shingon. His artistic talent is apparent in his texts; Kōbō-

daishi’s writing style places him among the ranks of Japan’s three greatest calligraphers.

As a writer, he left behind profound texts in which the doctrinal foundations of the

Buddhist sect that he formed are outlined.

    Another example is that of the poet Bashō (1644–1694 CE), the lonely pilgrim of

nature and author of many immortal haiku verses. This traveller-poet was inspired by the

Chinese classics, in the main by Chuang-tsu (Sōshi), but he also was strongly influenced

by Zen Buddhism. Bashō walked through the rough byways of the plains and mountains

and he captured both wide landscapes and tiny scenes in the concise metric spaces of

haiku. In his poor yet free pilgrim’s spirit there shone more than a concern with making

literature—it was an attempt to show a way of life. In this sense, Bashō raised the ‘way’

of poetry from the mundane to the level of an ascetic and spiritual path. Bashō was

searching both for Buddhas to venerate and also for ways to find ‘oneself’.

    To sum up, there are many similarities between the road to Santiago and the Buddhist

pilgrimage roads. As religious paths, all of them are an oasis of peace and asceticism, of

religious reflection and cultural inspiration, of dialogue and interpersonal encounter. All

of them provide propitious loci for immersion in meditative silence; for providing a sense

of being in harmony with nature; for devotional prayers; for the blooming of literary

creativity; for concord and solidarity.

    However, there are also considerable differences: Buddha taught the ‘way’; while

Christ is assumed to be the ‘way’. Buddhist pilgrimage in Japan is, in principle, circular;

Christian pilgrimage is linear. Buddhist pilgrimage should include a visit to all or many

temples along the route; Christians have to visit only the last temple (the tomb of

Santiago). However, despite these differences, pilgrimage is always a road to an

encounter with one’s self and with others, a route of asceticism and enlightenment.

                                 3 Pilgrimage, space and identity

           Ise (Japan) and Santiago de Compostela (Spain)

                                  Sylvie Guichard-Anguis

                                       Introduction

In this study I follow the definition of pilgrimage given by Chélini and Branthomme

(1982), according to whom pilgrimage is marked by three components: the existence of a

sacred place/a place understood as sacred and a particular way to reach this place; a

distance to be covered and a road to go along and a certain number of religious acts,

collective or individual, before the trip, during the trip, upon arrival at the sacred place

and after return to the departure point. In the light of this definition I will take a closer

look at pilgrimage in two different cultural contexts: Ise in Japan, and Santiago de

Compostela in Spain. I will begin with a brief history of the development of these two

pilgrimages, then follow the pilgrims on their way to their destinations, and finally

examine these destinations and their surroundings.

                      The two pilgrimages in general perspective

When Buddhism was introduced to Japan, it exerted its influence in several ways upon

the cults of indigenous deities (kami) and gave impetus to their organization. As

Buddhism already possessed a tradition of pilgrimage, it laid the ground for further

developments. Syncretism between Shintō (the cult of the kami) and Buddhism give birth

to the first types of Japanese pilgrimage, mōde (going to pray at a temple or shrine) or

mairi (humble approach to a palace or temple). Both terms imply a journey to a sacred

place, and a visit to a shrine or a temple.

   Ise Jingū (the Shrine of Ise) is composed of two main edifices, the Naikū (Inner

Shrine) and the Gekū (Outer Shrine) as well as 125 auxiliary or branch shrines, thus

forming a big religious complex. According to the Nihon Shoki,1 Amaterasu Ōmikami,

the sun goddess and ancestress of the imperial family, was enshrined along the river

Isuzu during the reign of the Emperor Suinin (29 BCE–70 CE). The Gekū was founded

much later, in 478 CE, when the shrine which provided sacred food for the sun goddess,

Toyouke Ōmikami, was transferred to Ise from the Tamba province.

   During the Nara period (710–794 CE) the Ise Shrine became the Dai-jingū (Grand

Shrine). By the end of the Heian period (794–1192) the income from the domains of the

Shrine of Ise dwindled, so the monies obtained from pilgrims grew in importance. During

the Edo period (1603–1867) the popularity of the Shrine of Ise increased enormously, and

the Meiji period (1868–1912) saw the creation of the Jingū shichō (the Government

office for the administration of the Shrine of Ise), devoted to the restoration of imperial

power and to the unity of the nation around the worship of the sun goddess Amaterasu,

thought of as an imperial ancestor.

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan   16

   After the Second World War and with the separation of state and religious ceremony

in 1946, the evolution of Shintō from State Shintō to Shrine Shintō gave the Shrine of Ise

a totally different political, religious and social environment. However, as we can see

from articles such as one in Asahi Shimbun published on 3 December 1995, entitled

‘(Official) New Year’s visit to the shrine—what about the separation between politics

and religion?’2—there is a constant stream of criticism aimed at government officials

whose visits to Ise are not strictly private.

   The city of Santiago de Compostela was founded in Galicia which was later to become

a part of Spain. Pilgrimages or religious travel (in Latin perigrinatio religiosa)—not

including the pilgrimage to Jerusalem—to the relics of saints reached a peak of

popularity during the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. However, during this era, the

popularity of pilgrimages to Rome, the only place in the Christian West where the relics

of an apostle could be found, dwindled. A new centre where the relics of another apostle

had been found was emerging: Santiago de Compostela.

   Not much is known of the origins of the cult of relics at Santiago (Chélini and

Branthomme 1982). While the Moors, who had invaded Spain in 711 CE, rapidly reached

the north of the country and sent raiding parties into France, in northwest Spain a small

Christian kingdom (in Asturias and present-day Galicia) remained, and it was here, at

Santiago de Compostela, that the tomb of the apostle St James (Santiago) is said to have

been discovered around the year 830 CE. Apparently, a strange light appeared to the

hermit Pelayo (who later became a saint) above his field and to the followers of the

nearby church of San Felix de Lobio, indicating the place which later took the name of

campus stellae (starry field), from which the name ‘Compostela’ may be derived.

   A few pilgrims to Santiago are recorded in the tenth century. In 950 CE Godescalc, the

bishop of Le Puy in France, may have been the first foreign pilgrim to Santiago.

However, in 997 CE the destruction by the Muslims of the city showed how fragile this

Christian kingdom remained. The beginning of the Reconquest in the early twelfth

century helped to secure the roads to Santiago, while already from the ninth century

onwards St James, mounted on his horse, was said to appear among soldiers in order to

encourage the Christians as they did battle.

   In the early twelfth century Santiago became one of the great destinations of medieval

pilgrimage, along with Rome and Jerusalem. The first cathedral was built over the site of

the tomb, and Benedictine houses were established along the developing pilgrimage

route. Later, the Synod of Rent (1545–1563) laid the foundation of the Catholic reform

and gave new impetus to the pilgrimage by legitimizing it. However, in the late

eighteenth century the pilgrimage was criticized and hospices were no longer kept in

repair. The revival of the pilgrimage to Santiago is partly due to archaeological

excavations in 1879, during which three corpses were found in a tomb. In 1884 Pope

Leon XIII recognized the relics as authentic. More excavations were carried out between

1956 and 1960, at which time the tomb of bishop Theodomir, the discoverer of the relics

of Santiago at the beginning of the ninth century, was found. After the Second World

War, the popularity of the pilgrimage to Santiago grew, attracting more and more visitors

from beyond the frontiers of Spain. The two visits of Pope John Paul II in 1982 and in

1989 enhanced the importance of this pilgrimage even further.

                           Pilgrimage, space and identity     17

                                  Ritual and pilgrimage

Turning to the Shrine of Ise, the rites observed there can be divided into three categories:

regular ones, extraordinary ones performed on occasions representing a threat to the

nation, and rites linked to the periodic rebuilding of the shrine. Other rites have been

added since the Meiji (1868–1912) period, such as for example, the regular service

kōreishiki (services sponsored by individual worshipers). For the Great Festival (ōmatsuri

or kannamesai), at which the first harvest is offered to the sun goddess, furnishing and

ritual implements are renewed.

    The rites of removing and rebuilding the shrine edifices (sengūsai) are of particular

interest. The first regular shrine rebuild was supposedly undertaken for the Naikū in 690

CE, and for the Gekū in 692 CE. The sixty-first rebuild took place in 1993 and involved

both edifices at the same time, all the auxiliary and branch shrines, and even the Uji

Bridge and the torii (gateway).

    The history of these rebuilds shows a constant adaptation to the specific conditions of

a given period (Guichard-Anguis 1993). In times of political insecurity, the rites may not

be performed, but in times of political stability and centralized power, when also the

financial collaboration of the people can be relied on, as a rule they are. The last rebuilds

have taken place at regular intervals: 1953, 1973 and 1993. Perhaps the greatest threat to

upholding the rites of removing and rebuilding the shrine is the necessity to supply

materials (especially building timber) and to maintain the know-how, considering that

over 2,445 craftsmen were needed in very different fields for the last operation. It goes

without saying that through reconstruction, the visible effects of the passing of time

vanish and the Shrine of Ise always appears new, though its architectural style dates back

more than a thousand years.3

    In the case of Santiago, rites are part of the calendar of the Catholic Church. The night

of July 24th sees fireworks, and, in the past, a Moorish-like construction put on the

façade of the Obradoiro would be burnt. The following day, July 25th, is designated as

the feast of the patron saint of the city and the celebration of Galician identity. However,

the notion of complete renewal, which is fundamental to the rites of the Shrine of Ise, is

totally alien to Santiago.

                                  Pilgrims on their way

One of the main differences between Santiago and Ise lies in the national nature of the Ise

pilgrimage, and the international character of the Santiago pilgrimage. Another

substantial difference is the fact that the pilgrimage to Ise opened itself to the wide

spectrum of society only gradually, whereas Santiago has always attracted people from

all levels of the Christian population. Until the end of the Heian period, access to the Ise

Shrine was forbidden to anyone but the Imperial family. Later it was granted to warriors

and Buddhist monks, and then little by little, to the other members from the various strata

of Japanese society. Nevertheless, even today, access to the inner shrine is still limited to

the Imperial family members and the highest ranking priests of the Grand Shrine.

    The Muromachi period (1333–1573) saw the popularization of pilgrimages, which

were organized by special guides (oshi or onshi) and the Ise-kō, a network (kō)

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan     18

established by local communities to support one or several of its members to undertake

the pilgrimage to Ise. During the Edo period (1603–1867) Ise-kō developed nearly

everywhere, and the pilgrimage to Ise became a general custom. This pilgrimage was

enhanced by the fact that the deity of Ise was believed to combine the nature of the local

tutelary deity with that of a deity who protected the whole country.

   The pilgrimage to Ise was, in a sense, also synonymous with the idea of ‘getting

away’,4 and ludic aspects cannot be denied. Pilgrimage involved sightseeing along the

way and temporary freedom through distance from the social and moral constraints of

everyday life. Consuming local fare5 and buying the products of local craftsmen

contributed to the value of the trip and satisfied curiosity. Between Uji and Yamada,6

entertainment areas thrived and fostered the development of the Furuichi quarter, one of

the five most important government-regulated centres of prostitution during the Edo

period.

   The diary of the Buddhist priest Saka, written in 1342, sheds some light on early forms

of pilgrimage to Ise (Sadler 1940). From the very beginning the sightseeing aspect of the

pilgrimage becomes obvious. The journey begins at Anonotsu, the present city of Tsu on

the seashore of the Ise Bay. Saka never forgets to describe the landscapes he sees and

especially the appearance of the sea and the sky. After visiting the shrines he continues

his travels, which he still understands as pilgrimage, and visits Futami no Ura,7 several

temples, and the seaside. Saka’s sensitive descriptions often end with a poem. The first

one was written during his stay in Anonotsu, and nineteen follow. In a sense, Saka writes

his poems as if using a camera, intent on catching and keeping the feelings of the

moment.

   In the case of Santiago, access to the saint’s relics was open to anyone from the very

beginning. Now the relics lie in a silver reliquary in a crypt under the high altar of the

church dating from the ninth century. According to Chélini and Branthomme (1982),

during the Middle Ages pilgrims used to travel in three kinds of groups: lords with their

escorts, ordinary people in neighbourhood groups, and groups of people who met by

chance on the road. Pilgrimage could be undertaken also as penitence ordered by a civil

court, so the sight of pilgrims in chains was not unknown. Rich people could entice

someone to undertake the pilgrimage in their place. The diversity among those groups

reflected the whole spectrum of Christian society.

   Among the millions of pilgrims who went to Santiago from every part of Christian

Europe between the tenth and eighteenth centuries, only around fifteen left records

(Barret and Gurgand 1978). According to these records the pilgrims usually walked

between thirty and forty kilometres a day, and it goes without saying that shoes and feet

were their main concern. Bleeding and pain could mean not keeping pace with the other

members of the group and also could result in being left alone in an unknown

environment. Due to the hazards and perils of travel, many pilgrims never returned.

Therefore preparations for the pilgrimage were undertaken with the greatest care.

   The atmosphere of the pilgrimage to Santiago appears to be vastly different to that

seen in the records of Ise mairi, in which less attention is paid to looming dangers, though

in both cases pilgrims were heavily dependent on the compassion of others. Protection for

the Santiago pilgrims did exist, in the form of certificates they carried, but solitude, fear,

physical exhaustion, dirt and the everyday quest for some sort of shelter for the night,

food and drink explain why the death toll was high. To distinguish real from false

                           Pilgrimage, space and identity    19

pilgrims and to secure help, a kind of international law slowly took form, supported by

churches, abbeys, principalities and kingdoms. The Liber Sancti Jacobi (cf. Viellard

1984), also called the Codex Calixtinus, includes a guide for the pilgrims, written around

1139, and lists the dangers which might be encountered on the road. However, it does not

mention any landscapes or other things pleasing to the eye.

    Turning now to the actual roads the pilgrims took, the ‘Special Road to Ise’ (Ise

betsukaidō) begins in the town of Seki.8 On the east side of the small city a torii (gate)

marks the point where the road to the Gekū and Naikū branches away from the old

Tōkaidō road linking east and west Japan. For centuries Seki was a station town (shukuba

machi) on the pilgrim’s way, and from here on the pilgrim is given the opportunity to

worship the deities.

    The original town of Seki dates back to 1583–1591, when the road was modified and a

new town centre (Naka-machi) was constructed by the local lord. It was integrated into

the fief of Kameyama, and after 1601 became the fifty-third stop on the Tōkaidō. In the

Naka-machi, inns for the feudal lords as well as for people of lesser ranks were

constructed, giving rise to a very prosperous period for the town. During the Meiji (1868–

1912) era, and in spite of the abolition of the station-town system, the popularity of Seki

increased thanks to the pilgrimage to Ise. However, the railway line between Nagoya and

Osaka built in 1900 and passing far from Seki, and above all the construction of a so-

called pilgrimage railway line to Ise, dealt mortal blows to the local economy.

    Created in 1955 by the merger of several villages, the new administrative town of Seki

saw its population dwindle, but the quality of its historical urban landscape dating back

mainly to the Edo period drew attention as early as 1930. An association for the

protection of the town was set up in 1979, as research carried out by individual experts

and the Japanese National Trust increased. In 1980 the municipality issued a decree on

the protection of its urban landscape, which was completed by the designation in 1984 of

Seki as a ‘protected area of a group of traditional constructions’. Five items of Seki’s

cultural heritage are national treasures; four are prefectual treasures and 15 are municipal

treasures. In 1995 the road through Seki was chosen by the Ministry of Construction as a

‘National Historical Road’, a designation which could be compared to the ‘Road to

Santiago’ established in 1987. Seki has since found a new lease of life by developing

tourism.

    The road to Santiago takes the pilgrim through a network of scattered constructions,

which form the nucleus of a great part of present European cultural heritage (Bourdarias

and Wasielewski 1996; Desclée de Brouwer 1993). In France we find four main roads, as

all the overland travellers coming from other countries (except Portugal) had to go

through France before reaching Spain. The first constructions dedicated to the pilgrims

around the second part of the tenth century were hospitals, while monasteries had already

split their function of hospitality in two: one to provide for travellers on horseback, and

one for those on foot. Chapels, hospitals for lepers and military settlements, which were

built later on, contributed to the vast and very complex network of facilities used by the

pilgrims. Great hospices were built during the twelfth-thirteenth centuries, open to the

poor and the sick, and giving shelter to the pilgrims. Several ecclesiastic orders, such as

the order of Cluny, dedicated a part of their activities to the pilgrims.

    During the reconquest against the Muslims, pilgrims were encouraged to settle in the

cities along the road of the Camino Frances in order to strengthen the newly conquered

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    20

territories (Torres Luna et al. 1993). This had an impact on the structure of space on a

scale that cannot be compared to that of the Ise pilgrimage. The sum of private (secular or

religious) initiatives backing the pilgrimage to Santiago laid out a map of what later

became some of the most renowned cultural properties in Europe, especially in France

and in Spain. In 1987 the Council of Europe decided that the road to Santiago was the

‘first European Cultural Itinerary’. We can thus conclude that the concern for the

protection of cultural properties at the end of the twentieth century has laid out a common

future for both the Santiago and the Ise pilgrims’ roads, but with a tremendous difference

of scale.

    The popularity of the Ise shrines remains high today,9 but as mairi (visit to a sacred

place) can imply, a simple visit to a shrine and/or the first visit to it at the beginning of

the new year (hatsu mōde), do not show the number of real pilgrims in the same sense as

in Santiago. Moreover, statistics for visitors to the Shrine of Ise do not indicate sex, age

and nationality.

    Perhaps one of the main differences in the attraction of and the motivations for visiting

Santiago and Ise at the end of the twentieth century lies in the fact that in Japan trains,

cars or buses are the favourite means to accomplish Ise mairi, involving no physical or

spiritual challenge. However, covering one hundred kilometres on foot or on horseback,

or two hundred kilometres cycling, are the distances necessary to complete in order to

obtain the certificate (Xacobea) that one has been a pilgrim to Santiago. Not surprisingly,

the pilgrimage to Santiago has gained popularity among young Europeans, who

undertake it as a challenge. According to the Bureau of Pilgrimage in Santiago,10 the

average pilgrim registered as having received the Xacobea in 1995 would be a young

man aged 16–30, generally a student, travelling on foot, usually along the Camino

Frances. In 1995 those pilgrims numbered 19,821 (including 5,737 foreigners).

    Motives given for the pilgrimage to Santiago are religious, religious and cultural, or

purely cultural.11 Sixty per cent in 1995, or 68.5 per cent in 1993, constitute the ‘genuine’

core of the many visitors who came to Santiago. Among those ‘authentic’ pilgrims who

ask for the Xacobea, 40 per cent also have other than purely religious motives. Another

category—that of organized groups of pilgrims—shares characteristics with the visitors

to Ise by coming by plane or other means of transport. Among them the constant flow of

pilgrims of the silver age category speaks for the popularity of this kind of travel.

    In Santiago I spoke to Ferdinand Soler, an unemployed young Frenchman from Paris,

aged 26. He had made a break with his job and set out for Santiago on 21 February 1995.

Walking through France in the cold of winter was a difficult challenge due to the

loneliness, the absence of social recognition (most of the time he was looked upon as a

vagabond), and the lack of signs on the old pilgrim roads. He met the first pilgrims when

he reached the Pyrenees, from where most of them begin their travel today. According to

him, the Camino Frances is well marked in Spain, and the social environment appeared to

be positive towards the pilgrims. As the motives of modern pilgrims varied a lot (he met

young people merely enjoying sightseeing on their first European cultural tour),

sometimes conflict would arise between the users of the different facilities. Being a

Christian, his devotion grew as he walked, but he found the days following his arrival in

Santiago, in the early morning of 5 May, spiritually and physically very difficult.

However, back in Paris (travelling this time by bus and train), he felt a lot more confident

about the future.

                           Pilgrimage, space and identity     21

    As for the pilgrimage to Ise, an academic from Nara city gave his opinion in an

interview to a daily newspaper.12 As a teacher of modern history, he found it instructive

to walk with a group of students in mid-winter along the 140 kilometres from Nara to Ise

and thus to recall the ordeals experienced by the pilgrims of the Edo period. A few

articles in the same newspaper’s leisure section associate the contact with nature through

similar kinds of physical activity as pilgrimage as nice opportunities to get into good

physical and spiritual shape. It is mostly elderly persons, however, who still visit Ise as a

spiritual centre, and are inclined to transfer large sums of money to the Shrine for its

upkeep.

                           The destinations: Ise and Santiago

Several elements play a major part in the natural environment of both places and

probably lie at the origin of customs and rituals which have become part of the identity of

both pilgrimages. First we should mention the nearby sea, with its huge wealth of fauna

and flora. From the sea come the products linked to the religious rites, and part of the

food for the pilgrims. In Ise, salt is produced in caldrons in Futami-chō, and dried abalone

(noshi awabi) comes from Kuzaki. In Santiago, scallop shells gathered on the seashore

are sold in front of the cathedral as tokens of the pilgrimage.

    Then there are the mountains, which constitute the natural limits of these sacred

places. At Ise, a barrier is formed by the Suzuka Mountains, while to the south the

Asama-dake (553 metres high) with its Kongōshō-ji temple protects the shrines. In

Santiago, the small hill Monseor gives the pilgrim their first sight of the sacred place;

often pilgrims used to express their feelings of joy there, and sometimes also of

penitence, as they took off their shoes or got down from their horses.

    Rivers too form geographical limits and must be crossed in order to enter into contact

with the sacred. On their banks purification takes place. In Ise water from the river Isuzu

is used to purify the hands and body before approaching the shrine. Near Santiago the

small stream called ‘Lava Mentula’ allowed pilgrims to rid themselves of the sins of

flesh.

    Then there are the forests. A pamphlet issued by the Grand Shrine of Ise states: ‘The

pure natural surroundings are transformed into a sacred park in which the grove (mori) is

itself equivalent to the sacred shrine (yashiro)’. In a sense, we can compare these forests

around the Shrine of Ise with the churches of Santiago. The old European diaries quoted

above give clear indications of the perception of Santiago. The last chapter of the Liber

Sancti Jacobi mentions seven doors and ten churches, and gives a detailed description of

the basilica: its dimensions, its portals, the fountain, the square, etc.

    The dimension of time, however, is totally different in Ise and Santiago. While

Santiago contains all the artistic styles which reached this part of Spain, the abundance of

these riches contrasts with the simplicity of the architecture of the Ise Shrines. At Ise, a

‘brand new past’ can be encountered; the history of the shrine seems eternal, as it is

continuously renewed and always part of the present.

    The city of Ise covers 179 hectares and had a population of 103,000 in 1995. Specific

services associated with the visits of pilgrims were provided in several urban districts,

now forming parts of Ise (Fujimoto 1968). Recent urban policies enhance their different

                       Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan        22

characteristics in order to foster their tourist value and have visitors stay longer. A brief

description of the Kawasaki (Fujimoto 1975; Inaishi 1981) and Oharai districts (Seike

1981; Sakurai 1991) underlines the presentday attitude towards the past and Japan’s

policies of conservation and protection. Kawasaki, on the banks of the Seita River, was

founded around the fourth century and might have been a self-administered town. During

the Edo period its wholesalers handled all the materials for the reconstruction of the

shrines, as well as rice, sea products, etc. for the supply of the pilgrims. Along the banks

warehouses were lined up, with lodgings facing the street behind. Much effort has gone

into the protection of Kawasaki after it was threatened by floods in 1974, and the river

bed was enlarged mainly through the initiative of the Association to Nurture the History

and Culture of Kawasaki.

   Oharai (in Uji) is a smaller district, where the guides (o-shi) used to live and own

lodgings which they provided for the pilgrims. As Oharai stood in the sacred zone of the

Inner Shrine (Naikū), it was ‘purified’ in 1891 by removing the shops providing food and

souvenirs. The old urban landscape thus disappeared, but it has been reconstructed again

bit by bit. Several centres of handicraft and traditional know-how can be found there

today. In 1979 a committee for the protection of the area was created, and the year 1990

saw a municipal decree which allows repair or reconstruction in Edo period style—in a

sense resulting in an ‘invention’ of an Edo period district.

   Santiago with its 115,000 inhabitants was included in the UNESCO World Heritage

List in 1985. In conjunction with the Compostela-1993 project the inner city benefits

from protection measures, while new housing zones were created around the city.

Located in a remote region of Spain, far in the west of Europe, Santiago plays the part of

a regional centre and university town famous for its religious studies. For both Ise and

Santiago the development of tourism seems an economic necessity in a peripheral

geographical location. The fourth ‘World Lead-off City’ Conference held in Ise on

October 1995 brought the two cities of Ise and Santiago together. The motto was

‘Reviving the Roads’. From this meeting the idea of sister-city ties has developed.

   Pilgrimages to Ise and Santiago embody two opposing perspectives of time and

relations to the past. In Ise the span of time lasts only 20 years before the shrines are

renewed; past, present and future dissolve as they are associated with the never-ending

process of reconstruction of the great shrine. In contrast, in Santiago periods of time pile

up and blend into harmony.

                                              Notes

   1 The Nihon-shoki (completed in 720 CE) is the oldest chronicle of Japan, covering a period

      from its mythical origin to the reign of the Empress Jitō (686–697 CE).

   2 ‘Hatsu mōde seikyō bunri wa?’ referring to the visit of the Prime Minister Murayama to the

      Ise Shrine on 4 January 1995.

   3 In the twentieth century new solutions had to be found to cope with the scarcity of building

      materials. This suggests that a slight adaptation may have taken place (Kobayashi 1981).

   4 Hence the concept of nuke mairi, i.e. pilgrimage undertaken clandestinely, ‘disappearing’

      from one’s community secretly.

   5 The making of the sweet Akafuku-mochi, for instance, goes back to 1707.

   6 Today’s city of Ise grew out of the merger of Uji, Yamada and several villages in 1955.

                             Pilgrimage, space and identity       23

   7 The Futami no Ura are two big rocks located 700 metres from the seashore and joined by

      ropes. Since the Heian period a Shintō cult has been dedicated to these rocks, seen as

      ‘husband and wife’.

   8 Seki had 7,400 inhabitants in 1995.

   9 According to the Ise municipal data book (1994), the total number of visitors was: 8,225,765

      (5,684,215 for the Naikū and 2,541,550 for the Gekū). The figure for the first visit of the

      year (hatsu mōde) for both shrines was: 370,130 on January 1.

   10 Details for every year can be found in the Revista de la Archicofradia Universal del Apostol

      Santiago, edited by la Archicofradia Universal del Apostol Santiago.

   11 Shifts are visible in the distribution of these three categories in the course of time: 60%,

      37%, 3% in 1995, against 68.5%, 28.5%, 2.5% in 1993.

   12 ‘Waraji de tadoru ikai no tabi’ [travel to a strange world wearing straw sandals], Asahi

      Shinbun, 19 February 1997.

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Bernes (Abbot), G., Veron, G. and Laborde-Balen, L. (1989) Le chemin de Saint Jacques de

   Compostelle: Guide pratique du pèlerin en Espagne, Randonnées pyrénéennes.

Bourdarias, J. and Wasielewski, M. (1996) Guide européen des chemins de Compostelle, Paris:

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Chélini, J. and Branthomme, H. (eds) (1982) Les chemins de Dieu—Histoire des pélerinages

   chrétiens des origines a nos jours, Paris: Hachette.

Chélini, J. and Branthomme H. (eds) (1995) Histoire des pélerinages non chrétiens: entre magique

   et sacré, le chemin des dieux, Paris: Hachette.

Cortes Trasmonte, M.P. (1962) El urbanismo en Santiago de Compostela en el siglo XIX, Santiago

   de Compostela: Universidad.

Costa Bujan, P. and Morenas Aydillo, J. (1989) Santiago de Compostela 1850–1950, Santiago de

   Compostela: Colexio de Arquitectos de Galicia.

Fujimoto, T. (1968) Monzenmachi no keisei to shaji no kinō—Ise no kuni Yamada no bāi

   [Formation of a religious-town and function of a shrine—the case of Yamada in Ise province],

   Kyoto: Shūraku no rekishi chiri, Rekishi chirigaku kiyō.

Fujimoto, T. (1975) ‘Kinsei minatomachi no hōkenteki ichi-danmen—Ise no kuni Kawasakichō o

   jirei toshite’ [Profile of a feudal port-town in the modern period—the case of Kawasaki in Ise

   province], Chiiki to Kōtsū, Tokyo: Taimeidō.

Fujimoto, T. (1978) ‘Oshi to hanesho’ [Oshi and money], Rekishi chiri kenkyū to toshi kenkyū,

   (Jō), Fujioka Kenjirō sensei taishoku kinen jigyōkai.

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   européenne, Paris: Klincksiek.

Guichard-Anguis, S. (1993) ‘Reconstruction périodique et prospérité d’une ville devant le

   sanctuaire “monzen machi” Ise’, Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne.

Hagiwara, T. (1985) Ise shinkō—1 Kodai Chūsei [Ise belief-Antiquity and Middle Ages], Tokyo:

   Yūzankaku.

Inaishi, K. (1981) Ise, Kawasaki no machinami chōsa [Ise, research on the historical landscapes of

   Kawasaki], Tokyo: Kankyō bunka kenkyūjo.

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Jingū shichō sōmubu (1992) Zuien, Ise: Jingū shichō.

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   Shrines], Ise: Jingū shintō seinenkai.

Kobayashi, B. (1981) ‘The case of the Ise Grand Shintō Temple in Japan’, Nessun Futuro Senza

   Passato IV. Assembla Generale, Congresso Internationale di Studi, Roma-Bari-Firenze-Verona,

   ICOMOS, pp. 25–31 (Maggio).

Lois Gonzàlez, R. and Rodorigez Gonzàlez, R. (1997) ‘La estrategia de promoción urbana de

   Santiago de Compostela’, El Planeamiento urbano y estratégico—Il Jornadas de Estudio y

   Debate Urbanos, Universidad de Leon.

Lopes Alsina, F. (1993) ‘Saint-Jacques: une ville pour l’apôtre’, Saint Jacques de Compostelle:

   mille ans de pélerinage en Europe, Paris: Desclée de Brouwer.

Nishigaki, S. (1984) Ise shinkō—Kinsei [Ise belief—Early Modern Period] II, Tokyo: Yuzankaku.

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   Japan’s Spiritual Home, Ise: Public Relations Section for the Regular Removal of the Grand

   Shrine of Ise.

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Sakurai, H. (1991) Naikū monzenmachi ni miru girei bunka [Culture of the ceremonies in the

   religious town of the Naikū], Ise: Girei bunka.

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   bunka kenkyūjo.

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   Santiago de Compostela: Grafisant.

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   Santiago y el territorio—Congreso International de Geografía, Santiago de Compostela:

   Grafisant.

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   Kōsei-Shuppansha.

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   XIIè siècle, Paris: Librairie Philosophique J.Vrin.

                               4  The concept of pilgrimage in Japan

                                      Sachiko Usui

                      From India to Japan: A concept’s journey

The principal type of pilgrimage in Japan is one based on the worship of the main image

of a Buddhist temple. In many cases the main image is Kannon. A representative example

for this kind of pilgrimage is the one to the 33 Holy Places of Kannon in the Western

Provinces (Saigoku or Saikoku), in which a pilgrim makes a circuit of 33 temples, all

enshrining an image of Kannon. The number 33 is derived from the 33 incarnations of

Kannon mentioned in the Lotus Sutra.

   The second most important type of pilgrimage is to worship the founder or patriarch of

a Buddhist sect, such as Kūkai (or Kōbō Daishi, 774–835 CE), the founder of the

Shingon sect in Japan. A representative pilgrimage of this kind is the one to the 88

Temples in Shikoku, in which a pilgrim (in this case called henro) sets out on a circuit of

88 temples relating to Kūkai on Shikoku Island. The majority of pilgrimages in Japan are

of the first type, where the pilgrim visits and worships a Buddhist image. There are 234

such courses (82 per cent of the total of Japanese pilgrim courses), comprising 4,423

temples. Among them, 26 per cent of the contemporary pilgrim courses are to worship

Kannon images; we can thus say that in modern Japan pilgrimages are very frequently

undertaken to worship Kannon. Such pilgrimages are referred to as junrei (circular tour to

worship images).

   Why Kannon? According to the Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan, 720 CE) the first

Buddhist image brought to Japan was a statue of Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism.

Why, then, was Kannon’s image popularly worshipped by pilgrims, and not

Sakyamuni’s? Since 1890, when Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850–1935) described Kannon

as the ‘Goddess of Mercy’ (Chamberlain 1979:370), most of his readers assumed Kannon

to be a goddess, but this was only one of various forms of Kannon.

   Kannon (Avalokitesvara-bodhisattva) was originally a male bodhisattva1 who came to

be known in ancient India around the first century CE. However, Kannon is believed to

be able to change into 33 different forms in order to save all beings through great

compassion, as described in the Lotus Sutra (Hokke-kyō; Saddharma-pundarika sutra),

one of the Mahayana Buddhist scriptures compiled in India around the second century.

   In China, the Lotus Sutra was translated from Sanskrit into Chinese six times. Among

the three extant translations, the most famous one goes back to Kumarajiva (344–413

CE), the son of an Indian monk, who arrived in China in 401 CE. Kumarajiva’s version

of the Lotus Sutra was distributed widely in North-East Asia, including Japan. In China,

the Daoist scriptures were modelled after this sutra, and in Japan, the Lotus Sutra became

the primary scripture of the Tendai and, later, the Nichiren sect.

                       Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan      26

   The 33 avatars of Kannon mentioned in the Lotus Sutra include Buddhas; Hindu gods

such as Indra, Mahabrahma or Siva; demi-gods such as Asura, Garuda or Mahoraga;

other ‘beings looking like humans but not human’; as well as various types of Buddhist

devotees (monks, nuns, laypeople, kings, prime ministers, wealthy men and their wives

or daughters). The features of Kannon are described only in the Kan Muryoju-kyō

Meditation Sutra (Nakamura et al. 1995), one of the three primary scriptures of Pure

Land Buddhism compiled in India around the same period as the Lotus Sutra. In this

sutra, a giant image of Kannon shining in purple and gold is described, with basic

features of a human being.

   Among Buddhist scriptures, the chapter of the journey of the boy Sudhana2 (Japanese:

Zenzai) in the Kegon Sutra (Flower Garland Sutra) is the only one in which Mt. Potalaka

is mentioned as the place where Kannon was believed to live (Yamabe 1957). In this

sutra, Zenzai, a layman, visited Kannon at Mt. Potalaka, supposedly in southern India. In

short, the basic features of Kannon are humanlike, but Kannon can assume 33 different

forms as described in the Lotus Sutra and is believed to live on Mt. Potalaka in India.

   The pilgrim courses that originated from the worship of Kannon images were

established by the end of the twelfth century and are thus the oldest of their kind in Japan.

In other words, the origin of pilgrimages in Japan is connected to the worship of Kannon,

based on the account in the Kegon Sutra, in which the boy Sudhana (Zenzai or Zenzai-

dōji) makes a pilgrimage to 54 Buddhist saints, including Kannon. I will discuss Zenzai

below. Here I shall look at characteristics of Japanese Buddhist pilgrim courses and relate

these to the Kegon Sutra.

   One of the common elements among the prototype pilgrim courses is a visit to a series

of temples in a set order, resulting in a circuit. What does this circuit imply? It is said that

the pilgrim’s round-trip journey, having originated in India, is related to the Buddhist

concept of rebirth in the ten realms of beings. In order, these realms include: hell; the

domain of hungry ghosts; that of animals; the realm of the Asuras (fighting spirits); the

realm of the humans; the realm of heavenly beings; the realm of Shōmon (Srâvakas, lit.

‘voice-hearers’, persons who listen to Buddha’s preaching); Engaku (Pratykabuddhas,

being in a state of realization and striving to free oneself); Bodhisattvas and finally the

realm of Buddhas. It was believed that the souls of deceased people would circulate

among the first six of these realms before having a chance to enter heaven. Thus

pilgrimages of the junrei (circular) type were designed to create the effect of attaining a

new life, just like newborn babies on earth.

   This idea of souls circulating among the ten realms can be traced back to the

Upanishad in ancient India, and it was adopted as a basic concept of Buddhism, where

pilgrim courses also took the shape of a circuit. In ancient India, the term ‘pilgrimage’

appears in connection with the duties of the people of the upper three of four castes in the

caste system in the Brahman’s normative law book, Manusmrti (Tanabe 1953:171–2),

completed between the second century BC and the second century CE. Along with the

popularization of Hindu pilgrimages, the Buddhist adoption of the concept appeared in

the early Buddhist scripture Mahaparinibbana-suttanta around the first century CE

(Nakamura 1984). The origin of the features of Buddhist pilgrimages lay in an ancient

Indian Hindu pilgrimage described in the Mahabbarata (Epic of the Bharata Dynasty),

completed in the fifth to the second century BC. This Hindu pilgrimage includes

                         The concept of pilgrimage in Japan     27

descriptions of the memorial places of Sakyamuni. Thus both Hindu and Buddhist

pilgrimage courses take the form of a circuit.

   As time went on, the concept of the Hindu pilgrimage spread to neighbouring

countries. For example, Mt. Kailasa in the north-east of the Himalayas has been one of

the most sacred places where the Hindu god Siva was believed to live (Tamamura 1995).

Consequently, this mountain attracted a great number of Hindu pilgrims who reached it

by walking along the foot of the snow-covered range.

   Later, Mt. Kailasa came to be included in Tibetan territory, becoming one of the

sacred places of Tibetan Buddhist and Lamaist pilgrimages. From the mid-seventeenth

century onwards, the Dalai Lama, who was thought to be one of the incarnations of

Kannon, became the ruler of the state of Tibet, and his palace was called Potala—a term

derived from the name of Kannon’s abode, Mt. Potalaka, described in the Kegon Sutra.

Consequently, Tibetan people also made pilgrimages to his palace as one of the sacred

places of Kannon.

   Since Siva was thought to be one of the 33 incarnations of Kannon, Mt. Kailasa

became one of the most popular places both for Tibetan Buddhist pilgrimages for the

worship of Kannon, as well as for Hindu pilgrimages. This oldest of all known pilgrim

routes, developed by ancient Indians, takes the shape of a circuit encompassing Mt.

Kailasa.

   In Tang China, the term pilgrimage could refer to a Buddhist monk’s journey to India

to obtain original Sanskrit texts of Buddhist scriptures and to visit memorial sites devoted

to Sakyamuni. Xuan Zhuang (600–664 CE), for example, travelled to India during the

period from 629 to 645 CE and brought back a great number of Buddhist statues and

original Buddhist texts in Sanskrit (Mizutani 1999).

   In the records of his travels, Xuan Zhuang often mentions Zenzai, Kannon, Monju and

others who played important roles in the chapter of the Kegon Sutra that describes

Zenzai’s pilgrim journey. This fact reveals that Xuan Zhuang probably walked Zenzai’s

pilgrim course as described in the Kegon Sutra. Xuan Zhuang’s travel route in India was

in fact almost the same as a Hindu pilgrim course and included sacred places associated

with Sakyamuni.

   It is well-known that the Buddhist concept of pilgrimage—embodied in the last

chapter of the Kegon Sutra—was introduced to Japan in the eighth century through

China. It is likely that this scripture, describing the journey of Zenzai (Sudhana),

promoted the establishment of pilgrim courses to Kannon temples in Japan. As

Chamberlain noted:

       Japan may be said to owe everything to India; for from India came

       Buddhism, and Buddhism brought civilization—Chinese civilization; but

       then China had been far more deeply tinged with the Indian dye than is

       generally admitted even by the Chinese themselves.

                                                                  (1979:246)

In the case of pilgrimages in Japan, he was probably right. As he pointed out, all of the

basic elements of Japanese pilgrimages were derived from India. These elements include

the Indian concept of Buddhist pilgrimage as practised on Mt. Wutaishan in Tang China,

where Indian monks, following the Kegon Sutra, developed the holy place of Monju

                     Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan   28

(Manjusri bodhisattva), which was brought back by Ennin (794–864 CE), who possibly

used the term junrei for the first time in Japan. Ennin also brought back soil from Mt.

Wutaishan, which he placed on the top of Mt. Hiei with the intention of creating a

Buddhist paradise there.

   The specific characteristics of Japanese pilgrimages reflect Zenzai’s journey, as

recounted in the Kegon Sutra. This is the only scripture describing Mt. Potalaka as

Kannon’s abode, where Zenzai could meet Kannon in this world. While the circuit-

shaped pilgrim route is based on the Buddhist concept of transmigration of souls among

the 10 realms of rebirth, which originated from the Upanishad in ancient India, this

concept was adopted by Buddhism and embodied in the pilgrim journey of Zenzai. In the

case of the 33 Holy Places of Kannon in the Western Provinces, the number represents

the 33 incarnations of Kannon described in the Lotus Sutra. This idea of incarnations, in

turn, was based on the Indian concept of avatar, i.e. various possible forms taken by a

supernatural being in order to manifest itself in the human world. Even today, Japanese

go-eika (pilgrim songs) are dedicated individually to each temple on a pilgrim circuit.

This practice is modelled on Zenzai’s gatha, dedicated to each of the 54 saints and

teachers he met on his pilgrim journey described in the Kegon Sutra. The origin of go-

eika can thus be traced back to the Indian hymns for Hindu gods in the style of gatha as

described in the Sama-veda.

   Finally, the founders of the 33 Holy Places of Kannon included Indian monks, who

sailed to Japan prior to the official introduction of Buddhism. Even though a great

number of Indian monks came and promoted Buddhism in ancient Japan, most of them

were ignored by the China-Korea oriented Japanese governments as time went on.

   We may thus say that the origin of pilgrim courses in Japan lies in the Indian concept

of pilgrimages as created by Indian monks at Mt. Wutaishan. It is noteworthy that in

China and Korea there is no Buddhist pilgrim course similar to that of the 33 Holy Places

of Kannon in the Western Provinces of Japan. Japanese Buddhist pilgrimages, in other

words, seem to be directly influenced by Indian concepts of pilgrimage.

   In addition, Christianity from Europe can also be said to have influenced Buddhist

pilgrimages in early modern Japan, as we can see in the Kumano Kanshin Jikkaizu

Mandala painting, depicting the adoption of Christian attitudes toward their ‘idolos’.

Since Kumano bikuni (wandering female Buddhist novices or ‘nuns’ in the Kumano

region) used this type of mandala for the promotion of pilgrimages, the Christian

elements concealed in them were disseminated all over Japan in the course of

diversification of Japanese pilgrimages from the eighteenth century onwards. Also,

feminine images of Kannon, namely Kishimojin (Hariti), and those of the bodhisattva

Jizō holding a baby and resembling the image of the Holy Mother, began to be produced

after the Shōgun’s prohibition of Christianity in the early seventeenth century

   Incidentally, it can be asked how many of the early Japanese Christians understood

what Christianity was. In 1552, Cosme de Torres, the successor of Francisco Xavier,

asked Lord Ōuchi Yoshinaga for permission to erect a building for Christians in the Sūō

Province (present-day Yamaguchi Prefecture). On the scroll granting permission,

mention was made of the establishment of a ‘temple for monks from Saiiki (India) who

had come to promote Buddhism in Japan’ (Nei 1988:93); in fact, Torres had actually

come to Japan via India.

                         The concept of pilgrimage in Japan      29

   Also, there might have been some problems of translation. Since Jesuit missionaries

used the term ‘Tenshu-kyō' (The Teachings of the Lord of Heaven) as the translation for

Catholic teachings in Japanese, it was probably natural that the Japanese people thought

Tenshu-kyō to be a new sect of Buddhism. In fact, Tenshu was an alias of Indra who was

a guardian of the Buddhist Law in esoteric Buddhism and well-known in Japan as

Taishakuten, one of the 33 manifestations of Kannon. Consequently, it is quite possible

that a number of early Christians mistakenly thought that Christianity—known as

Tenshu-kyō—was a new sect of Buddhism focusing on worship of the image of Tenshu

or Taishakuten, brought by ‘Indian monks’.

   It should also be mentioned that Jesus Christ himself was considered one of ten or

more incarnations of Visnu when Christianity was introduced to India. As a result,

Hinduism assimilated much of Indian Christianity. Since the Sakyamuni Buddha was

thought to be the ninth manifestation of Visnu, Indian Buddhists were drawn to Hinduism

when esoteric Buddhism became popular. Since Hindu deities were incorporated into

esoteric Buddhism as manifestations of Buddhist deities, people came to think the

original deities were Hindu gods that had existed in India before Buddhism was

established.

   Presumably a similar phenomenon presented itself in early modern Japan. As a result,

many Christians embraced a new type of Buddhism in which the images of Kannon and

Kishimojin resembled the Holy Mother. This phenomenon certainly also reflects the

Indian concept of avatar.

   The evolution of Japanese Buddhist pilgrimages, in which the worship of images of

Kannon has been predominant, is one of the phenomena showing the process of the

Japanese domestication of foreign religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and

Christianity, which were successively brought to Japan from ancient times to the present.

Thus foreign elements lie at the root of Japanese ‘traditional’ pilgrimages and influenced

their development over the centuries.

            The journey of Zenzai (Sudhana) in the Kegon Sutra and the

                      establishment of pilgrimages in Japan

As mentioned above, the journey of Zenzai, described in a chapter of the Kegon Sutra,

played an important role in establishing and popularizing the concept of pilgrimage in

Japan. After the death of Sakyamuni (the historical founder of Buddhism) in the fifth

century BC, his teachings were first handed down by his disciples. They began to be

compiled around four or five centuries later. At first, the concept of the salvation of one’s

own self (hinayana, smaller vehicle) was popular. When Hinayana Buddhism was

predominant, the term ‘Buddhist’ referred to a person who had left home to become a

monk or nun.

   At this time a number of kingdoms flourished in India, and along with them,

commerce and industry developed through the accumulation of capital from overseas

trade. The rise of a wealthy merchant class caused a change in the traditional Hindu caste

system. The new merchant class strongly supported Buddhism, and, being opposed to the

traditional Hindu caste system, it sympathized with the Buddha’s more ‘egalitarian’

thoughts. However, it was equally important that the children of the wealthy families

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    30

should be able to inherit and continue their family traditions, which would not be possible

if they left home to become monks or nuns.

    As a result, the contradictory desire to be a Buddhist but not to leave home led to the

creation of the concept of a bodhisattva as a being who stays in this world and, instead of

leading a secluded life, practises Buddhism to help others attain enlightenment. Wealthy

merchants actively supported Buddhist institutions by donating food, money, land and

buildings. Laypeople came to play important roles in the Buddhism of ancient India, and

their activities are depicted in a number of scriptures, of which a representative example

is the Kegon Sutra.

    Compiled in north-western India around the first to second century CE, the Kegon

Sutra reflected the trends of the above-mentioned society in India. The sutra was brought

to Eastern Jin China around the fifth century and translated from Sanskrit into Chinese by

a north-Indian monk, Buddhabhadra, from 418 to 420 CE.

    Zetian Wu-hou (624–705 CE), the third Emperor of the Tang Dynasty (and the only

Empress in 5,000 years of Chinese history) commissioned the second translation of the

Kegon Sutra, carried out by Siksananda between 695 and 699 CE; Zetian Wu-hou herself

wrote the preface.

    In a third translation of the Kegon Sutra in 798 CE, a certain Pajna translated the final

chapter (Gandavyuha, Journey of the Boy Sudhana) into Chinese, an indication of its

popularity in Tang China. According to the Mikkyō Daijiten (1968), while in Tang China,

Kūkai received some Buddhist scriptures in Sanskrit from Pajna. It is possible that these

scriptures included the original text of the chapter on Zenzai’s journey in the Kegon

Sutra, which might have stimulated Kūkai to establish the pilgrim course connecting the

88 temples in Shikoku.

    In fact, the Kegon Sutra, and especially the chapter describing the pilgrim journey of

Zenzai, had spread throughout northern China as well as other East and South-East Asian

countries, as we can see from the wall paintings of the Mugaoku cave of Dunhuang (c.

seventh century CE) or the stone reliefs of Zenzai and Kannon at Borobudur in Indonesia

(c. eighth century CE), all of which depicts scenes related to Zenzai. According to the

Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan; 720 CE), Buddhism was introduced into Japan from

Paekche, one of the ancient kingdoms on the Korean Peninsula, in 552 CE. After some

conflict with Japanese native beliefs, Buddhism became the official state religion in the

eighth century, strongly supported by the Emperor.

    The Kegon Sutra (Flower Garland Sutra; Avatamsaka-sutra) contains the first

discourse of Sakyamuni and describes the characteristics of his great enlightenment. In

essence, this enlightenment revealed that all beings have Buddha-nature; each

phenomenon bears a relation to all others; and each experience contains all experiences

within it in an interdependent, mutually complementary relationship. This sutra became

the primary scripture of the Kegon sect of Buddhism.

    The Kegon doctrine was introduced to Japan by the monk Daoxuan from Tang China

in 736 CE, while the monk Shenxiang from Silla on the Korean Peninsula founded the

Kegon sect in Japan in 740 CE. By order of the Emperor Shōmu (701–756 CE), the

Kegon Sutra became the basic doctrine of Buddhist temples in Japan from 749 CE

onwards. At that time Buddhist temples and nunneries were constructed in each province

as state institutions modelled on the Tang Chinese system. To serve as their headquarters

the Tōdai Temple (ji) was erected in the capital city of Nara in the mid-eighth century; it

                        The concept of pilgrimage in Japan    31

contained the statue of Birushana-butsu (Vairocana), popularly known as the Great

Buddha (16.19 m high). Vairocana, who was originally the sun god in Hinduism, became

the king of the universe in the Kegon Sutra and was incarnated in esoteric Buddhism as

Dainichi-nyorai, an idealization of the truth of the universe.

    At the dedication ceremony of the statue of Vairocana at the Tōdai-ji in 752 CE,

Bodaisenna (Bodhisena, 704–760), an Indian monk of the Brahman caste, acted as the

leader of the 10,000 priests gathered there, and Buttetsu (Foche), a Vietnamese monk,

performed ceremonial dance and music, from which Gagaku and Gigaku (Japanese court

music and dance) are derived.

    However, after the capital moved to Kyoto in 794 CE, the Kegon sect declined as a

result of the rise of the newly imported Tendai and Shingon teachings from China. Tōdai-

ji was revived as the headquarters of the Kegon sect in Japan only after the Meiji

Restoration (1868).

    In 984 CE, the Sanbō E-kotoba (Buddhist Tales of India, China and Japan), compiled

by the courtier Fujiwara Tamenori, recorded that the nuns of Hokkeji in Nara had created

a group of dolls representing scenes of Zenzai asking questions of the saints in his quest

for enlightenment (Izumoji 1990). This is the oldest record in Japan of the visualization

of Zenzai’s pilgrim journey based on the Kegon Sutra.

    The Kegon Gojūgosho Emaki (Picture Scroll of the 55 Sacred Places of the Kegon

Sutra) was produced in Japan in the second half of the twelfth century as a visualization

of the chapter on Zenzai, stimulating Japanese interest in pilgrimages. Certainly, the

visual version of Zenzai’s journey played an important role in popularizing his

pilgrimage and especially his visit to Kannon at Mt. Potalaka.

    The title ‘Gojūgosho’ (55 places), however, is not really correct. The Kegon Sutra

states that Zenzai visited 54 places, meeting two young Buddhist devotees, Tokushodōji

(Daraka) and Utoku-donyo (Darika), together at the fifty-first place. It is said that the

Japanese government mistakenly gave the title Kegon Gojūgosho Emaki (Picture Scroll

of the 55 Sacred Places of the Kegon Sutra) to the scroll when it was registered as a

National Treasure in the early Meiji period.

    A late twelfth-century copy of the scroll depicting Zenzai’s journey (ink and light

colour on paper, in typical Japanese painting style) has been preserved at Tōdai-ji. Some

sections of this scroll were later separated. Since Tōdai-ji has been destroyed twice by

fire, in 1180 and 1567, the temple’s art treasures are mostly lost and extant works of the

Kegon sect are few in number.

    The name Zenzai, or Zenzai-dōji (Sudhana in Sanskrit) means ‘child of many good

treasures’ and perhaps refers to the countless jewels that appeared around him when he

was born. Zenzai was the son of a wealthy man, and he wanted to find supreme

knowledge and attain Buddhahood. One day he attended a sermon by the bodhisattva

Monju (Manjusri), who instructed him to travel south in order to find enlightenment.

Going from one place to another, Zenzai thus visited a series of 54 places, where he met

53 saints (Monju he met twice).3

    The number 53, based as it is on the pilgrim journey of Zenzai, became a symbol of

travel in Japan. Examples of this include the woodblock prints Fifty-three Stations of the

Tōkaidō (the main route linking east and west Japan) by Andō Hiroshige (1797–1856),

and the work of Jippensha Ikku (1765–1831), who wrote a very popular humorous story

about the travellers at the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō.

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan      32

   The 54 saints/teachers Zenzai met included bodhisattvas (Kannon, Monju, Miroku and

Fugen), Buddhist monks and nuns, wealthy men, an incense dealer, an artisan, medical

doctors, sages, Sakyamuni’s mother, Sakyamuni’s wife, laypeople, young boys and girls,

a beautiful courtesan who could adapt herself even to a demon in order to heal it of a

wound, an angry Brahman, a grumbling king, as well as various Hindu deities. These

people represent the various types of Buddhist devotees who had attained enlightenment,

and by meeting them the young boy Zenzai was able to make a broad study of life.

   At the end of his long journey Zenzai visited the bodhisattva Miroku (no. 53,

Maitreya), who urged him to seek out the bodhisattva Monju (no. 1 and no. 54 Manjusri)

again. At the request of Zenzai, Miroku opened the door to the Diamond Realm, where

Zenzai saw the world of Vairocana, accompanied by Monju and Fugen and surrounded

by a great number of buddhas, bodhisattvas, demi-gods and celestial beings. Here, Zenzai

realized that during his pilgrimage he had completed the Buddhist training equal to that

of a bodhisattva.

   The final scene, in which Vairocana appears, can be understood as existing in this

world, as Zenzai could get there on foot. In the Kegon doctrine, the earthly world was

highly valued, suggesting the possibility of the creation of paradise on earth. Thus

Kannon’s paradise was located on the top of Mt. Potalaka in southern India, a concrete

place Zenzai could actually visit. Accordingly, the specific places to worship Kannon in

Japan are this-worldly places, all reachable on foot.

   One opinion says that Monju was a wise man of the Brahman caste, who really existed

in ancient India. According to the Kegon Sutra, Monju’s abode was located somewhere

in the north-east. Seen from India, Mt. Wutaishan is situated in that direction. Moreover,

Monju’s abode is explicitly said to be at Mt. Wutaishan in the Monjushiri Hōhōzō Darani

Sutra, translated into Chinese by Bodhiruci (572–727 CE), an Indian monk of the

Brahman class. As a result, a great number of Indian monks went to Mt. Wutaishan in

search of Monju whom they believed to reside there. Thus Mt. Wutaishan came to be

viewed as the paradise of Monju on earth, and the headquarters of Kegon Buddhism was

established there.

    Fugen (Samantabhadra) was also a bodhisattva who encouraged Zenzai by telling his

own experience of seeking enlightenment on earth. Fugen’s abode was thought to be Mt.

Emeishan, which became one of the three sacred places of Buddhist pilgrimage in China,

together with Mt. Wutaishan and Mt. Putuoshan, the latter being Kannon’s Mt. Potalaka.

All of these sacred places were developed by Indian monks who came to China in order

to find the bodhisattvas described in the Kegon Sutra. As a result, these places came to be

regarded as Buddhist paradises, and they were visited by a great number of pilgrims from

China, India, Korea and Japan.

    In Japan the oldest record of the term junrei (pilgrimage circuit) is found in the title of

the diary of the Tendai priest Ennin (794–864 CE), Nittō Guhō Junrei Kōki (Ennin’s

Diary: The Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law; cf. Reischauer 1955).

As a successor of Priest Saichō (or Dengyō Daishi, 767–822 CE), the founder of the

Tendai sect of Buddhism in Japan, it was the aim of Ennin to make a trip to China to

obtain the latest information on the advanced Buddhist studies there and to bring back

Buddhist scriptures and items to Japan. In that sense Ennin’s trip to China was equivalent

to Xuan Zhuang’s travel to India. Ennin’s travel route in China likewise took the shape of

a circuit.

                         The concept of pilgrimage in Japan       33

   As already mentioned, during his stay in Tang China from 838 to 847 CE, Ennin

visited a number of Buddhist holy places, including the headquarters of the Kegon sect of

Buddhism at Mt. Wutaishan in Shanxi Province. At that time a great number of Indian

monks actively promoted Buddhism in China, and they particularly stressed the teachings

of the Kegon Sutra, which spoke of the importance of this world in which people could

find Buddhist paradise.

   In 845 CE, however, the Chinese government proscribed Buddhism, together with

Christianity, Zoroastrianism and other religions of foreign origin, and demanded the exile

of foreign devotees. Ennin was forced to leave, and while waiting for a chance to return

to Japan at Qinglong Temple together with Indian monks, he completed his book

Shittanki (The Book of Siddham Style of Sanskrit).

   When Ennin returned to Japan, he was appointed Chief Abbot of Enryakuji Temple,

the headquarters of the Tendai sect located on the top of Mt. Hiei, and established many

new Buddhist rituals based on his study at Mt. Wutaishan. Ennin, who had studied

Sanskrit under Ratnacandra, an Indian monk, brought back more than 800 volumes of

Buddhist scriptures, including a great number of Sanskrit texts. In the list of what he

brought back we can also find small items such as Sakyamuni’s relics (sarira) and ‘20

balls made of Wutaishan’s soil’ (Fukaya 1990:690). This fact reveals that Ennin probably

planned to establish a branch of Monju’s abode on Mt. Hiei.

   One of Ennin’s disciples, Sō-ō (831–916 CE),4 continued his practice of worshipping

three Buddhist pagodas in the precincts of Enryakuji temple, and expanded this practice

into the Sennichi Kaihō-gyō (a 1,000-day pilgrimage to a series of holy places), which

was a Buddhist exercise aimed at getting closer to the final goal of enlightenment as

described in the chapter on Zenzai’s journey in the Kegon Sutra. It is possible that the

Tendai monks’ Sennichi Kaihō-gyō—still performed today—was the origin of junrei in

Japan, and that it led to the establishment of the 33 Holy Places of Kannon in the Western

Provinces.

   Based on the ancient Hindu view of the world, the authentic direction to reach the

Buddhist heaven or the place to attain enlightenment was described in the Kegon Sutra

(Nyūhokkai-bon Chapter, vol. 34–1) as follows: one should walk from east to south, then

west and north, finally reaching the ‘upper world’. The origin of this concept of

pilgrimage is found in Hindu mythology, Mahabharata, in which King Yudhisthira

finally reaches the Himalayas in the north at the end of his long pilgrim journey in a

clockwise direction and was welcomed to the heaven there by Indra, who became one of

the 33 forms of Kannon when adopted into Buddhism.

   In a similar fashion, Zenzai in the Kegon Sutra attained enlightenment after walking

from east to south (where he met Kannon on earth) and then to the west and the north,

were he finally reached the world of Vairocana. In Japan, the pilgrim route to the 33 Holy

Places of Kannon in the Western Provinces also starts in the east and then goes to the

south, the west and finally to the north. It is likely, therefore, that the pilgrim circuit for

the 33 Holy Places of Kannon was established by adopting the principles laid out in the

Kegon Sutra.

   To conclude, pilgrimages have been popular in Japan since the ninth century, when the

term junrei was first used by the Tendai monk Ennin. Today, there are many pilgrim

courses still attracting large numbers of people who visit a series of temples enshrining a

statue of Kannon or other Buddhist image, or a series of temples related to the founder of

                       Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan        34

one of the Japanese Buddhist sects. The history of these pilgrim courses tells us about the

rise and fall of Buddhism in Japan and the trends of the society in which the pilgrims

lived.

                                              Notes

   1 Bodhisattva: one who seeks enlightenment and aspires to Buddhahood. A bodhisattva is a

      being in the ninth of ten ‘worlds’ (the tenth is the world in which one has attained

      enlightenment); the state of a bodhisattva is characterized by compassion and the search for

      enlightenment by devoting oneself to saving others.

   2 Sudhana was also one of Sakyamuni’s names in one of his previous lives. In that sense,

      Zenzai in the Kegon Sutra can be thought of as one of Sakyamuni’s incarnations.

   3 There are various opinions about the number of places Zenzai visited. As Zenzai is said to

      have met Monju twice, Monju’s place should be counted as one. Another opinion says that

      Visvamitra (no. 44) did not give any advice to Zenzai, but recommended that he meet

      Silpabhijna (no. 45); consequently, no. 44 should not be counted. As a result, many people

      believe that the number of places at which Zenzai actually met an ‘important being’ is 53.

   4 Konryū Daishi, Ennin’s disciple who established the Sennichi Kaihō-gyō. Cf. Mitsunaga

      1996:73.

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                               5  The daily life of the henro on the island of Shikoku during the Edo period -  A mirror of Tokugawa society

                                    Nathalie Kouamé

                                      Introduction

The Edo period (1615–1867) can be seen as the heyday of pilgrimages. Every year

hundreds of thousands, even millions, of Japanese would set off on the roads of the

archipelago to worship at temples and shrines which local and national traditions had

singled out from among countless other places of worship. In this period, some of the

most popular and certainly the most famous religious circuits were Ise, Kumano, Saikoku

(in the Western Provinces), Chichibu, Bandō and Konpira. The reputation of these places

dates back to the middle ages and in some cases even to antiquity. Another important

pilgrimage of the Tokugawa period was the Shikoku pilgrimage (Shikoku henro), also

known as the Pilgrimage of the 88 Holy Places (Shikoku hachi-jū-hakka-sho). This

pilgrimage seems to be of relatively recent origin: no precise mention of its form or its

tradition can be found in reliable historical texts before the seventeenth century.

Nevertheless, together with Ise, the Shikoku pilgrimage was the pilgrimage which drew

the largest numbers during the Edo period.

   As with the other pilgrimages of the period, the increasing success of the Shikoku

pilgrimage can be ascribed to a large number of socio-economic factors. First, the

improved standard of living of commoners enabled them to plan for extra expenditure of

travelling; second, the general raising of education standards made people want to get to

know the world outside the village or town where, until then, they mostly had been

forced to remain; third, the geopolitical situation was favourable, with improved transport

and accommodation facilities and relatively safe conditions which prevailed in a country

with strict controls of order. These factors explain why the Pilgrimage to the 88 Holy

Places became feasible for many.

   Apart from these socio-economic factors, mention must be made of the popularity of

the cult of Kōbō Daishi (Kūkai), who, according to some, was the founder of the Shikoku

circuit. During its golden age at the beginning of the nineteenth century the Shikoku

pilgrimage would attract between twenty and forty thousand henro.1 On an out-of-the-

way island like Shikoku, so many pilgrims could hardly escape notice.

   Material dealing with the Shikoku Pilgrimage of the 88 Holy Places is quite abundant.

There exist intriguing arguments relating to its origins (cf. Kondō 1971; Shinjō 1988;

Gorai 1996), accounts of its main stages (Maeda 1971; Shinjō 1988), as well as

stimulating analyses of its imaginary elements (Shinno 1992, 1996). In the last few years,

however, more systematic interest has been shown in the everyday lives of the henro of

                       Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan      38

Shikoku (cf. Kiyoyoshi 1999). This interesting new perspective reveals some little

known, and occasionally unknown, aspects of Tokugawa society in general and of the

outer regions of the early modern archipelago in particular. This article, which aims to

take a closer look at the everyday reality of the Shikoku pilgrimage as experienced by the

henro, will pay special attention to a few original texts dealing with early modern

Shikoku. Using primary materials such as henro diaries and administrative records, I

wish to examine the daily life of the henro in their various capacities as devout

Buddhists, as Bakufu subjects, as participants in the local economy, and as popular—

presumed—saints.

   Indeed, throughout the Edo period, the material reality of a henro’s journey was

dominated by three factors: first, various laws which regulated a commoner’s right to

travel; second, the material conditions on the island and services provided by its

inhabitants; and third, the special status enjoyed by henro in their traditional role as

‘fellow travellers of Kōbō Daishi’ (dōgyō ninin).2 It was the combination of these three

aspects that gave the henro’s journey on Shikoku during the Edo period its unique

flavour.

                                      The social setting

Even today the most common image held of Japan under Tokugawa domination is that of

an extremely rigid society in which the authorities had almost absolute control over the

movements of its subjects. Even though recent research has come to question this image,

it still persists, even among professional historians. This is due in part to certain historical

facts which cannot be ignored. First, there was the Tokugawa foreign policy known as

sakoku (closed country), which put the strictest limits and controls on diplomatic,

economic and political contacts with foreign countries. Second, there was the unique and

extremely restrictive system known as sankin kōtai (alternate residence), which forced

the majority of the daimyō (feudal lords) of the period to live in Edo (the former name of

Tokyo)—where their families were kept hostage—one year out of two. Third, there was

what historians have termed tochi-kinbaku, the tacit or explicit obligation of most

commoners to remain ‘attached to the land’, in other words never to leave the limits of

the village during the course of their lives.

    Bearing these facts in mind it comes as a surprise that the Japanese of the Edo period

in fact enjoyed a great freedom of movement and were able to leave their towns and

villages for pilgrimages and many other purposes. Furthermore, the relatively indulgent

attitude of the Edo central government and the local han (the daimyō's domains and

administrations) towards this freedom of movement is even more unexpected. This, at

any rate, is one of the things that strike the scholar examining the administrative

regulations as well as the practical details for clues to the travelling conditions

experienced by henro in early modern Shikoku: we have every reason to believe that the

state authorities made few demands on the henro, allowing them to circulate relatively

freely

    Let us first examine the constraints imposed on henro wishing to visit the 88 Holy

Places linked to the memory of Kōbō Daishi (Kūkai). We will consider the various

constraints in the order in which the henro experienced them. At first sight they make a

                       The daily life of the henro on the island   39

discouraging list, but a close analysis allows us to put them into perspective. First, the

henro of early modern Japan had to request authorization for departure. They could, for

example, apply to their shōya (village headman), who, in turn, would serve as

intermediary between the applicant and the higher administrative echelons on whom the

decision depended. The first thing that can be said here is that, despite the compulsory

nature of this formality, the absence of the phenomenon known as nuke-mairi

(clandestine pilgrimage, or stealing oneself away to go on a pilgrimage) in the tradition of

the Shikoku pilgrimage would seem to indicate that such authorization could be obtained

without difficulty.3

    Another indispensable element was the need to obtain a ‘circulating ticket’ (ōral

tegata) before going on the Shikoku pilgrimage (or any other journey). This was granted

by the local temple or by the shōya of the village. Here too, we are bound to conclude,

given the abundant documents that have come down to us, that such tickets were easily

obtainable.

    Even when these formalities had been dealt with, ordinary Japanese wishing to go on

the Pilgrimage to the 88 Holy Places could only leave at certain fixed periods. In this, the

authorities seem to have been motivated by practical considerations: peasants should not

leave when there was work to be done. Thus we are forced to conclude that the

authorities were not so much concerned with interfering with pilgrims as much as with

making sure that all agricultural work was properly carried out and that taxes were paid

on time.

    The legislation concerning the Shikoku pilgrimage could also limit the length of time a

pilgrimage could last. Occasionally, certain regions of Shikoku demanded that the length

of stay on their territory was limited. For example, the Tosa province allowed pilgrims 30

days to visit its 16 fudasho.4 While this seems harsh, seen from another perspective, this

measure appears perfectly reasonable: the henro had to travel 91 ri (364 kilometres) in

all; this works out to a mere 12 kilometres per day, a trifle for pilgrims who were quite

capable of covering up to 40 kilometres daily!

    En route, the henro had to show their ōrai tegata and, in some cases, other official

documents at the gates (sekisho) and at checkpoints (bansho) on the borders of domains.

Their documents could also be checked by minor officials in towns and villages. From

the travel diaries of the period, we can see that this did not bother the henro much; in fact,

there were few checkpoints and gates on Shikoku in the Edo period, and apart from Tosa

province (present-day Kōchi prefecture), where the henro were required to have a travel

document in which the dates and places where they spent the night were inscribed

(irikitte), there does not seem to have been much checking.

    In listing the regulations concerning the henro, we must mention official pilgrimage

routes some authorities defined in great detail, especially for the Tosa province and the

region of the Kuma Mountains in Iyo province (present-day Ehime prefecture). When

journeying on these routes, the henro were forbidden to take side roads. Such official

routes were, however, found only in certain places, and they were always the shortest

distance between two fudasho.

    Certainly the pilgrims’ freedom of movement was limited in so far as, for example,

they were often not allowed to spend more than one night in the same locality. The rule,

however, did not apply everywhere (e.g. in Tosa). Furthermore, sources from the Edo

period concerning the movements of the henro contain interesting exceptions to this rule:

                       Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan     40

at least one case is known where the local authorities actually invited henro to stay in the

villages vacated by absent peasants.

    We can thus conclude that, in general, the severity of the administrative authorities of

the feudal domains (han) did not prevent anyone from doing the Shikoku circuit.5 So let

us now view the Shikoku pilgrimage from another angle, that of ‘legislation as a kind of

travel insurance’.

    The idea of something like travel insurance for commoners (henro and others) can be

traced back to the government of Tsunayoshi, the Shōgun who, in 1688, promulgated

rules for the Tōkaidō route entitled ‘Circular concerning the treatment of travellers and

oxen and horses’. In substance, the text guarantees every sick traveller the right to be

treated or accompanied from inn to inn until he gets home. Also, a traveller who dies

while on the journey has the right to a funeral. This certainly does not fit in with the

image of an administration opposed to the movement of commoners!

    These measures were adopted in many parts of the archipelago including Shikoku and

were in force during the rest of the Edo period. As time went on, certain details were

modified. Further provisions were made concerning financial responsibility. On Shikoku

and elsewhere, it was quite common for various medical expenses to be paid by the

patients themselves when they could afford to, or, if not, by the host community.

Numerous historical sources attest to the fact that the yukidaore-henro (henro who have

collapsed while on the way) were taken care of in strict accordance with the prescriptions

of Tsunayoshi.

    Of course, the Edo authorities and the local han were probably motivated by the desire

to preserve order on their territories’ main roads. What may be more important, however,

is that the authorities, faced with the mobility of their subjects, adapted to the situation by

regulating their movements meticulously to such an extent that they set up a system of

‘social welfare’.

                                       Types of henro

When discussing the everyday life of the henro on the Shikoku pilgrimage we must make

clear to what types of henro we are referring. Henro came from a great variety of social

backgrounds. Simplifying somewhat, we can divide them into two distinct categories:

those who fitted into the official socio-economic system, and those who, for whatever

reason, were outside it. Researchers on the Shikoku pilgrimage have tended to emphasize

the latter category, seeing them as pious individuals who were also rather poor social

outcasts; they are thought of as often ill and, in order to escape from their lot, always

ready to go on a pilgrimage, during which they would have to beg or receive gifts from

the local people. Furthermore, since many henro were female, all pilgrims are seen as

typically being of low social status. Careful reading of material available on the 88 Holy

Places, however, leads one to doubt whether the henro, on a whole, were such pitiful

figures. Many were, in fact, part of ‘normal’ society, such as hyakushō (peasants), chōnin

(townsmen), minor samurai or minor officials from all parts of Japan.

   These individuals, as their travel diaries show, made the Shikoku pilgrimage under

relatively favourable material conditions, though of course such a pilgrimage was

arduous enough in the Edo period: visiting the 88 temples and shrines meant going right

                      The daily life of the henro on the island   41

round the island, a distance, according to the calculations of the period, of 1,200 km,

which had to be covered on foot. As the pilgrims often came from across the Inland Sea

(Setonaikai), the distance required to reach Shikoku must be added to this. There were

even some pilgrims who did the Shikoku pilgrimage after having completed another one

elsewhere. Nevertheless, several documents show that, in the second half of the Edo

period, henro completed the circuit of the island in between 30 and 60 days, which leads

us to believe that they were undaunted by a distance of 1,200 km, and that the most

determined could cover between 30 and 40 km per day, while those who were in less of a

hurry could finish the circuit in comfort!

   Fairly good geophysical conditions partly explain the exploits of the henro who were

able to complete the circuit in one month: despite certain nansho (difficult places [to

cross]), like Tobiishi, the stony beach of Tosa province, or the steep paths leading to

certain fudasho (e.g. the Yokomine temple, number 60), the henro did not encounter

insurmountable obstacles on the road. Moreover, natural conditions were occasionally

improved by human effort. This was the case, for example, in Tosa province where at the

beginning of the Edo period many rivers had been difficult to cross because of the lack of

ferries; in the golden age of the Shikoku pilgrimage this was no longer a problem—

provided, of course, the henro could pay for their passage! In any case, in view of the

importance of ascetic exercises in the Japanese religious tradition, these difficulties were

unlikely to discourage the henro. In fact, they were probably seen as adding an extra

dimension to the religious adventure and might even be felt as the necessary condition to

obtain the supernatural protection of Kōbō Daishi.

   Given its position on the periphery of the archipelago, early modern Shikoku had

never had enough travellers or enough economic and political importance to warrant the

setting-up of infrastructures as developed as those of central Japan with its excellently

organized five major roads (gokaidō). In other words, on the island of the 88 Holy Places,

the pilgrims would not be able to find the same density, diversity and quality of

accommodation they could find elsewhere in Japan. Nevertheless, the arrival of

thousands of pilgrims on the island was bound to accustom the islanders to lodging

henro: having been a rather haphazard affair in the beginning, finding accommodation

became more and more predictable as time went on.

   The first historical record we have concerning accommodation of henro on early

modern Shikoku is of the ekiroji (temples providing accommodation and facilities) of

Awa province (present-day Tokushima prefecture). This refers to the eight temples Lord

Hachisuka Iemasa (d. 1638) built in 1598 to provide lodgings for the night. None of these

temples was a fudasho of the circuit at that time, but the henro were invited to sleep

there. This indicates that already in this period they were designated and therefore

perceived as a specific category of traveller.

   The ekiroji were situated on one of the five roads established by the Tokushima han.

They were a day’s journey apart and provided the henro and other travellers with a

network of inns which had not been available before. Safety considerations certainly

played a part: travellers had to be protected from brigands who were still a danger at the

time. To guarantee the success of its enterprise, the Tokushima domain granted financial

compensation to each inn; in fact, each ekiroji was granted land with a certain production

capacity known as kan’nin-bun (land [granted in return for] effort endured; cf. Kondō

1971:201–12).

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    42

    This official stopover system lasted some time. However, the original spirit of these

establishments seems to have degenerated by the beginning of the seventeenth century. In

his travel diary (1653), the henro-monk Chōzen complains that when he requested

hospitality from the Enton temple in the village of Shishikui, he was rudely sent about his

business (Iyoshi 1994). Ultimately the institution became a thing of the past: no travel

diary from the nineteenth century mentions the ekiroji any longer, and the institution was

also not imitated by other domains.

    From travel diaries we learn that, from the eighteenth century onwards, there were a

wide variety of ways of spending the night in Shikoku. This variety bears witness to the

local people’s ability to satisfy the increasing number of pilgrims. However, it is difficult

to judge what form of accommodation was most commonly chosen. The possibilities

were manifold and each pilgrim could combine several throughout the course of his

journey. But we can list the different types of accommodation available. Among the

cheapest were the zenkon’yado (inn provided as a good deed). This was free

accommodation provided by local families for the henro who, as explained below,

enjoyed a special status. The henro houses (henroya) owned by village and town

communities were also free. However, unlike the zenkon’yado, these places were not well

maintained and were thus avoided by henro rich enough to do so. The Shikoku temples,

particularly the fudasho of the circuit of the 88 Holy Places, also provided the henro with

a place to spend the night.

    Another type of institution, by which the henro seem to have been particularly

attracted, was also not run by professionals and was called kichinyado (inn [in which one

pays] the price of wood), also common in other parts of Japan. Such inns, which

combined comfort and budgetary considerations, seem to have been extremely common

from the nineteenth century onwards. They were provided by private individuals and had

many advantages. First, a flexible minimum service: one did one’s own cooking, paying

only the cost of the wood needed; second, relative comfort: guests rented a futon and

were supplied with rice and the necessary foodstuffs (prices must have been low as there

was no intermediary between henro and peasants); third, and one of the main advantages

of this type of accommodation, was that each peasant household could provide this

service, which brought extra income for the locals.

    From the travel diaries we learn that, besides accommodation, the henro found all the

goods and services they needed en route. Pilgrims purchased food for the meals they had

during the day at the kichinyado and at professional inns, tea houses (chaya) and other

establishments on the island; bentō are often mentioned, as well as tea, udon, mochi and

other sweetmeats that could be bought anywhere. Besides food, pilgrims could obtain

everything they needed for walking, for body care, and for their religious activity; diaries

mention the purchase of sandals, incense, paper, medicine, tobacco, etc. We also find

henro spending money to have their hair cut, probably in order to maintain their shaven

heads which signalled their retreat from the world of the profane and their temporary

identification with the world of religious people. Moreover, at a time when the provinces

used different currencies, it was necessary to change money to obtain the required

currency. The henro did this in the tea or sake houses, in temples, with private people

and, naturally, also through professional money changers.

    Besides the inevitable expenditures necessary for the pilgrimage itself, the henro of

the Edo period also spent money for what we may call ‘touristic’ purposes. There can be

                       The daily life of the henro on the island    43

no doubt that part of the budget and travelling time of the henro was devoted to activities

which were not strictly speaking connected to the visit of the 88 Holy Places. It is very

important to emphasize that, despite current views held by many scholars working on

Japanese pilgrimage, the Shikoku circuit was not synonymous with asceticism, strain,

disease or death, but also with entertainment and pleasure.

   In fact, early modern Shikoku abounded in opportunities for the henro to ‘play the

tourist’, and by taking full advantage of these they benefited the locals. The henro, who

invested time and money in their pilgrimage, would make a point of visiting all sorts of

places which were not far from their route. These detours allowed them not only to

satisfy their curiosity, but also to increase the religious effectiveness of their trip as they

solicited the various gods for magical protection which would favourably complete that

provided by Kōbō Daishi. For example, in the eighteenth century it was already common

practice for the henro to visit the shrine of the Shintō-Buddhist god Konpira Daigongen

in Sanuki province (presentday Kagawa prefecture). They also more or less

systematically visited certain other holy places such as the monzenmachi6 of the

Busshōzan temple and of the Shirotori shrine in Sanuki province, where there often were

kaichō,7 theatrical performances, sumō and lotteries. The henro also made a detour to

visit the Gongen shrine and its Kanze’on temple situated on the Sasa Mountain in Iyo

province (present-day Ehime prefecture). Some henro were quite capable of crossing the

Inland Sea to the island of Ōmishima (Matsuyama domain, Iyo province) to visit the

ancient shrine of Mishima Daimyōjin there. Many ‘unnumbered’ temples and shrines

(bangai-fudasho) along the circuit also attracted the curiosity of greater or lesser numbers

of henro.

   An important element of a henro’s pilgrimage was the visit of the baths of Dōgo Spa

(Dōgo Onsen) in Iyo province, about 2 km north-east of Matsuyama Castle. Here they

could enjoy the pleasures of the baths offered free of charge by the locals for three

consecutive days! Dōgo Onsen was not only a place for relaxation, but also provided the

welcome opportunity to improve one’s health, as it included a ‘therapeutic’ bath visited

by many invalids. Besides such attractions like Dōgo Onsen, henro also visited the feudal

castle towns (jōkamachi) along their route, the most famous ones being Tokushima,

Kōchi and Matsuyama. The diaries reveal how much the henro appreciated the shrines,

teahouses and shops there. Finally, we must mention the henro’s interest in various local

curiosities, particularly architecture, and in every kind of entertainment along the route.

In short, it is clear that during the Edo period, on Shikoku as well as on other pilgrimages

of central Japan, ‘tourism’ and pilgrimage went hand in hand.

                                     Locals and henro

The henro of the Edo period were subject to, and granted, special advantageous

legislation, and their presence was particularly welcome on a less-than-prosperous island

like Shikoku, where they enjoyed a special status. This status made their everyday life on

Shikoku relatively easy.

   Actually, the local people did not think of the henro as ordinary travellers at all. Old

legends dating back to at least the first third of the seventeenth century likened them to

the legendary figure of Kōbō Daishi himself. At least from this period onwards it was

                       Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan     44

common to believe that each henro really was the fellow traveller (dōgyō ninin) of Kōbō

Daishi, and even Kōbō Daishi’s incarnation. This belief in turn was due, no doubt, to the

fact that a religious tradition, probably spread by the holy men from Mount Kōya (Kōya

hijiri), stated that Kōbō Daishi - understood as having been capable of performing

miracles—was the founder of the Shikoku pilgrimage. Corresponding statements are

found notably in the writings of the ascetic Shinnen (d. ca. 1690), who was probably the

most active promoter of the Shikoku pilgrimage. For example, in his ‘Script on the

Virtues of the Shikoku Pilgrimage’ (one of the earliest classics among the literature

devoted to the Shikoku pilgrimage) Shinnen relates several stories well-known at the time

about the island of the 88 Holy Places (Iyoshi 1994). These stories claim that to offer

alms to a henro was the same as honouring and welcoming Kōbō Daishi himself and

entitled the host to the protection of the saint (see also Chapter V). For example, offering

a drink of water would lead to the promise of flowing streams in times of drought; a gift

of chestnuts to a henro meant that chestnuts would grow in all seasons. On the other

hand, the ungenerous could suffer unpleasant consequences: shellfish refused to a henro

might lead to these same shellfish turning into stone, etc.

    Even though it is difficult to tell how such legends originated, sources prove that at

least in the eighteenth century henro were considered ‘sacred’ by virtue of their alleged

link to Kōbō Daishi. Thus local families often collected the fuda (a sort of visiting card)

of henro as amulets. Hundreds, even thousands of fuda were accumulated. Henro who

were given hospitality at zenkon’yado were asked to give such fuda in exchange, and

these were hung up to protect the house and its inhabitants against various evils like

disease, fire, etc. (for details see Kouamé 2001).

    Such beliefs concerning the sacred nature of the henro had a deep impact on their

daily life on Shikoku, leading to the widespread practice of settai. Basically, settai means

hospitality and is neutral in value, though nowadays it can sometimes refer to extravagant

entertainment in order to obtain a favour from a person. During the Edo period, the word

settai could be used to designate various offerings of goods, for example, tea, rice, coins,

sandals and so on, offered to henro. Beyond that, settai could also designate more or less

free hospitality (zenkon’yado), transport by litter, baths, or massages. Shinjō (1988)

points out that in the case of settai offerings have not been begged for and are given

spontaneously (sekkyokuteki), without being requested. Settai therefore can be seen as a

religious act—a version of fuse (Buddhist almsgiving)—coupled to the belief that henro

are the fellow travellers of Kōbō Daishi.

    Maybe the origin of settai can be found in the traditional Japanese hospitality towards

those who are regarded as marebito (divine visitors), i.e. monks, ascetics, pilgrims and so

on. One aspect that might explain the success of settai in Shikoku during the Edo period

is that once collective settai was established in a village, people offered it on the basis of

a consensus within a community from which its members could not escape. Actually, in

some villages of early modern Shikoku, collective settai was extremely well organized by

the local administration, which sometimes determined precisely the quantity of settai rice

some villagers had to give in accordance with their personal income.

    Thanks to settai a henro’s journey was certainly made more agreeable. However, from

some henro diaries containing precise accounts of gifts and services obtained in the form

of settai we can see that gifts were modest: coins, a pair of sandals or a little rice. We also

learn that the extent of the settai often depended on the season. For example, some of the

                        The daily life of the henro on the island       45

islanders were generous around the twenty-first day of the third moon, the date of Kōbō

Daishi’s death (nyūjō), and relatively less so at other times. Moreover, a statistical survey

of several travel diaries shows a considerable difference between regions which were a

source of large numbers of gifts and services (such as Iyo province, followed by Sanuki

province), and regions where settai seems to have been practised less (Awa and Tosa

provinces; settai were even banned in Tosa province from at least 1819 on, for obscure

reasons).

    To sum up, a study of the everyday life of the henro of the Edo period can be

extremely instructive and provide elements for a more general understanding of Japanese

society of the time. It enables us to gauge both the mobility of the commoners of the time

as well as the flexibility of the authorities concerned. It shows the arrival of large

numbers of pilgrims who were also tourists, bringing economic benefits to a region which

at the time was relatively under-developed. It also shows that an island like Shikoku,

which is often looked down upon for its relative lack of culture, was capable of

contributing to the brio of Edo period civilization by reactivating and renewing ancient

traditions of hospitality in the shape of settai.

                                              Notes

   1 In Japanese, the term henro designates both the circuit of the 88 Holy Places as well as the

       pilgrims who do this circuit.

   2 Literally: ‘the two of us together’. The characters for henro spell out ‘dōgyō ninin’ and were

       written on pilgrims’ hats, indicating that they are walking together with Kōbō Daishi.

   3 The term nuke-mairi, frequently used during the Edo period, refers mostly to visits to the Ise

       shrines not authorized by one’s family or the administration.

   4 A fudasho is a place—sho—where one leaves a sort of visiting card—fuda; because henro

       leave fuda in each of the 88 Holy Places visited, the temples and shrines of the circuit are

       named fudasho.

   5 It must be mentioned, however, that on two occasions—during the crisis in the Tempō era

       (1830–1844) and the troubles at the end of the Edo period in the 1850s/1860s—extra

       constraints were placed upon the henro.

   6 A monzenmachi refers to a town established ‘before the gates of a temple’, i.e. making a living

       mainly by providing services to the people who have come to visit a (famous) temple.

   7 Kaichō refers to the exhibition of the treasures of temples and shrines which normally

       remained hidden. These exhibitions were quite lucrative for the religious establishments that

       organized them.

                                         Bibliography

Gorai, Shigeru (1996) Shikoku henro no tera (jō) [The temples of the Shikoku henro], Vol. 1,

   Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten.

Iyoshi, Dankai (1994) Shikoku henro-ki shū [Collection of henro diaries], Matsuyama: Ehime-ken

   Kyōka Tosho.

Kiyoyoshi, Eitoku (1985) Nakatsuka Mohei [1847–1922] to Shinnen Hōshi no henro hyōseki

   narabi ni Kinsōji Nakatsukasa monjo [Nakatsuka Mohei, the henro mark stones of Shinnen

   Hōshi and the Kinsōji Nakatsuka documents], Niihama: Kaiōsha.

Kiyoyoshi, Eitoku (1991) Shikoku henro no henroishi to michi mamori [The Shikoku henro stones

   and the talismans protecting their journey], Niihama: Kaiōsha.

                        Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan       46

Kiyoyoshi, Eitoku (1999) Henrobito retsuden [Biographies of henro], Niihama: Kaiōsha.

Kondō, Yoshihiro (1971) Shikoku henro, Tokyo: Ōfūsha.

Kouamé, Nathalie (1998) Le pèlerinage de Shikoku pendant l'époque d’Edo, pèlerins et sociétés

   locales, Paris: Institut nationale des Langues et Civilisations Orientales.

Kouamé, Nathalie (2000) Initiation a la paléographie japonaise: a travers les manuscrits du

   pèlerinage de Shikoku, Paris: Langues & Mondes—L’Asiatheque, Collection ‘Connaître le

   Japon’.

Kouamé, Nathalie (2001) Pèlerinage et société dans le Japon des Tokugawa: le pèlerinage de

   Shikoku entre 1598 et 1868, Paris: Ecole françhise d’Extreme-Orient, Monographies.

Maeda, Takashi (1971) Junrei no shakaigaku [The sociology of pilgrimage], Kyoto: Minerva

   Shoten.

Shinjō, Tsunezō (1988) Shaji sankei no shakai keizai shi-teki kenkyū [Pilgrimage to shrines and

   temples from the viewpoint of political economy], Tokyo: Hanawa Shoten.

Shinno, Toshikazu (1992) Nihon yūkō shūkyō ron [Studies on pilgrimage and religious travel in

   Japan], Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan.

Shinno, Toshikazu (1996) Kōza Nihon no junrei [Lectures on pilgrimage in Japan], Vols. I, II, III,

   Tokyo: Yūzankaku Shuppan.

                             6  Strangers and pilgrimage in village Japan

                                       Teigo Yoshida

                                       Introduction

The object of this paper is to examine changes in the Japanese concept of the stranger,

especially the pilgrim. The ambiguous nature of the stranger has already been discussed

by Van Gennep (1909:36), Pitt-Rivers (1968:20), Yamaguchi (1975) and others,

however, the ambiguity, sacredness, and symbolism of the stranger/pilgrim will be

discussed here specifically in relation to Japanese contexts. This will be done by focusing

on legends, folktales and other oral traditions, along with beliefs and practices. First, I

shall make some comments on changes in the traditional image of the stranger. Second,

Japanese pilgrimage will be examined, with special attention to the imagery of the

stranger and the responses of villagers to the visits of pilgrims. Oral traditions recounting

misfortunes encountered by pilgrims, such as robbery and murder, will then be

investigated, along with incidents of retribution, or curses (tatari), recounted in oral

traditions, suffered by families whose ancestors are reported to have killed pilgrims. I

will then return to the question of the pilgrim as a stranger, focusing on the ambivalent

status of persons both welcomed and feared. Finally, the usefulness of Turner’s model of

communitas for understanding pilgrimage in Japan will be assessed.

                                  Images of the stranger

In Yoshida (1981) I discussed the ambiguity of the Japanese imagery of ‘stranger’, who

can be seen both as good and as evil. Above all, I stressed the positive image of the

stranger in Japanese folk religion. It was Origuchi Shinobu who first focused on the

expression marebito (stranger, lit. wandering person). Marebito encompassed the gods

worshipped in the rituals of unjami (sea deities) in Okinawa, hokaibito or those who visit

every household in the villages during New Year to wish good fortune and happiness for

the family members, ancestors’ spirits at bon festivals, and all sorts of gods who visit

villages from the outside. Origuchi called the ‘other world’, from which marebito come

to visit this world, niraya, kanaya or tokoyo (the eternal world). He argues that while

tokoyo refers to the island of death as the residing place for ancestral spirits, marebito

does not refer simply to the ancestors, but includes ancestors and other divinities as well

(cf. Origuchi 1955–1957, 1978).

   In opposition to Origuchi, Yanagita Kunio maintained that the deity of the mountain

(yama no kami) is equivalent to that of the paddy field (ta no kami), that these and other

deities are believed to be ancestors, and that the place for ancestors is the mountain. I do

not aim here to debate these distinctions any further, but in so far as studies of the

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan   48

imagery of the stranger in Japan are concerned, I find Origuchi’s conceptions most useful

(Yoshida 1967, 1981).

    Historical documents from the seventh through the eleventh centuries indicate that

rural communities in ancient times customarily treated strangers as guests or marebito

who were believed to bring abundance and happiness (Amino 1984:8). During the Edo

period certain villages used official and public money to welcome mountain ascetics

(yamabushi); blind, lute-playing (biwa) musician-priests (zatō) who prayed for the health

of the family; blind women (goze) who brought good fortune by singing songs to the

accompaniment of the three-stringed lute (shamisen); Buddhist priests (komusō) playing

a bamboo flute (shakuhachi); or other travellers and visitors from outside the village.

Miyamoto (1978) reports that in more recent periods there were villages where certain

houses had been assigned for putting up travellers, and that certain rooms, futon and

dishes were available for the goze when they visited. Thus the custom of providing

hospitality for strangers practised in ancient times survives into the present although it

has declined in frequency.

    It is also well-known that in many parts of Japan at New Year, youths and children

wearing masks of deities (e.g. Shichifukujin—the Seven Gods of Good Fortune) visit the

houses to greet people with flutes and drums. They are given food, cakes or sake from

each house they visit (cf. Yoshida 1981). Even in Tokyo around 1930 I remember that at

New Year a man, wearing a lion’s mask, who visited our house every year to dance,

wishing the year to be a happy one for all of us.

    The concept of stranger as marebito became associated with the popular belief in

Kūkai or Kōbō Daishi (774–835 CE), the founder of the Shingon sect of Buddhism.1 One

of the legends associated with Kōbō Daishi is that when a poor, dirty priest asked for a

cup of water, those who refused always suffered a shortage of water afterwards.

However, those who offered him water, even though they had very little themselves, were

later given a clean spring that never dried out. The villagers only learned afterwards that

the priest whose virtue accomplished these miracles was Kōbō Daishi. This sort of legend

has been transmitted from generation to generation up to now in many parts of Japan

(Yanagita 1971[1950]: 233–5; Wakamori 1972). When I conducted field-work in a

mountain village in Kōchi Prefecture in 1964 and 1965, I discovered that Kōbō Daishi

was believed to be the god of wheat, having taught villagers about wheat by bringing

them some grain. We can say that the concept of stranger as marebito, together with the

widespread belief in Kōbō Daishi, who might appear in disguise, was a support for the

practice of pilgrimage in Japan for centuries.

    However, historical studies by Amino and others indicate that the custom of receiving

the stranger as a visiting god in Japanese rural communities was considerably

transformed from the beginning of the Muromachi period (1338–1573) onwards (Amino

1984). During the age of civil wars, a historical document dating from 1556 noted that a

village in Imahori, Ōmi, publicized a set of written codes stating that outsiders were not

allowed to stay in the village (Amino 1984). Another document from 1606 shows that

many of those who gathered in front of Daibutsu (large and famous statues of Buddha)

were beggars, blind or dumb persons, untouchables, as it were. All were called irui igyō

(strange creatures with strange forms; cf. Amino 1984). There must have been pilgrimage

priests among them, but all were counted as irui igyō.

                     Strangers and pilgrimage in village Japan     49

                                  Pilgrims and villagers

Japanese pilgrims differ from traditional western pilgrims in that they visit Buddhist

temples, Shintō shrines and other sacred places and travel from one holy place to another.

The Japanese words junrei and henro correspond to the English word pilgrimage, the

French pèlerinage, and the Spanish peregrinatión, but junrei and pilgrimage do not mean

exactly the same thing. For example, visiting Santiago de Compostela from other parts of

Europe for religious purposes is a pilgrimage, while in Japan visiting the Ise Shrine to

worship, no matter how far the person has travelled, is not junrei but sankei (worship at a

temple or shrine); also, junrei can refer to both a pilgrim and a pilgrimage. The essential

difference is that while sankei means to go and worship gods or other sacred things at just

one temple or shrine, junrei means to worship at several sacred places, visiting one place

after another. The element jun means ‘to go around’, rei ‘to worship’. Moreover, henro,

used when speaking of pilgrims and pilgrimage around the island of Shikoku, literally

means to go around on the road.

    The word junrei is said to have first been used by Ennin (ninth century CE), a priest of

the Tendai School, in his diary early in the Heian period (794–897 CE). Early pilgrims

were members of the Imperial family and other aristocratic people. It was only at the

beginning of the Edo period that ordinary people became most numerous as pilgrims

(Hoshino 1981, 1986, 2001). Traditionally, shugyō (spiritual and ascetic self training) has

been an important element in pilgrimage in Japan.

    I will now describe briefly recent junrei on Sado Island, Niigata Prefecture, as

recounted in a classic ethnography of Kitakoura by Yanagita (1950). Pilgrimages on the

island of Sado, which is 210 kilometres in circumference, started before the Genwa era

(1615–1624) in the Edo period, though we do not know exactly when. One of the reasons

why junrei became popular on Sado was that the worship of Kōbō Daishi flourished

there.

    During leisure times between busy seasons of agriculture, villagers went around the

island pursuing their beliefs and desiring to do penance. The pilgrims must have been

well received by the villagers. They were expected to beg at some houses once or twice a

day even if they had enough money, since begging on a pilgrimage is known as ‘imitating

what Kōbō Daishi did’. According to their oral tradition, if villagers were hospitable to a

pilgrim who looked very poor, they would afterwards never need mosquito nets in the

summer. However, those who were not hospitable to the pilgrim would never have good

drinking water in the future. Only after the pilgrim had left would they learn that he was

Kōbō Daishi himself. Legend has it that Kōbō Daishi could be alive among contemporary

pilgrims, so that people must be kind to them.

    On Sado hoito (lit. meaning ‘beggar’) used to visit houses to greet people at the New

Year and on other happy occasions. Members of other groups, such as persons who could

cure illness through prayer, shamans (kitōshi), diviners, or Buddhist nuns, would visit

houses, regardless of the season. These groups mostly came from Echigo (present-day

Niigata Prefecture) on the mainland and begged for food. People on Sado Island called

some of them hoito, while most travellers were known as henro. Thus the inhabitants of

Sado, as probably in most villages in Japan, evidently did not clearly distinguish between

pilgrims and other kinds of visitors and travellers from outside (Yanagita 1950).

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    50

   Among those pilgrims or travellers there were a variety of people who were in various

ways religious, such as the zatō (blind priests), or the rokubu (the word is derived from

roku-jū-roku-bu, 66 volumes), the latter travelling with the 66 volumes of the Lotus Sutra

and dedicating one volume to a temple in each of 66 provinces of Japan.

                    The misfortunes befalling rokubu and pilgrims

According to a legend collected by Nomura Jun’ichi on the island of Sado, a rokubu was

once received in a house in a village in Sotokaifu in the north-western part of Sado. He

was invited by the head of the household, a fisherman, and was taken to a boat to be

shown night fishing. The fisherman found out that the rokubu had a lot of money, so he

killed him on the boat and stole his money. After that murder a strange fire appeared

every night far out on the sea. Another man went out to see what it was, but found

nothing. Villagers said that the deceased rokubu lit the light on the sea, and that this

probably represented the rokubu’s grudge over being killed (Nomura 1984).

    Another legend Nomura collected on Sado says that once a man killed a rokubu to

steal his money and buried him on a mountain he owned. He erected a small shrine there,

which still exists today. However, the murderer became impoverished due to the

retribution (tatari) exacted by the soul of the dead rokubu, and had to leave for Hokkaido

after selling his mountain land.

    A third legend tells the story that a certain household welcomed a rokubu and made

him stay. However, someone in the house killed him to steal his money. The family

became wealthy afterwards, but, due to retribution of the murdered rokubu, all family

members and all their descendants died young (Nomura 1984).

    One of the reasons why so many rokubu travelled around Japan was that when a man

became too old to work he often left his home and went on pilgrimage as a rokubu.

Particularly in the winter, however, many rokubu died on the way. Some people buried

and held a Buddhist service for them, building tombs where they died, in the belief that

this would bring them something good (Nomura 1984). In certain places, when a family

member died, another member went off as a rokubu on the seventh day after the death in

order to pray for the deceased.

    Stories of murdered rokubu’s and other pilgrims’ retributions on Sado Island are all

quite similar and usually tell of a family head who welcomed a rokubu to the house, but

when it was discovered that the rokubu had a lot of money, killed him and stole his

money. With this money the family became wealthy, but in the long run it could not

escape the rokubu’s retribution. All sorts of misfortunes therefore befell the family

members, such as illness, quarrels, the births of mentally ill children, economic decline or

the premature deaths of generations of family members.

    In Ikeda-machi (Nagano Prefecture) a legend tells of a rokubu who visited and entered

a house in spite of the refusal of the family head who shouted, “Get out!” The rokubu was

forced outside and was killed. After that, however, the family suffered misfortunes for

generations. Therefore a mound, called kyōzuka (Mound of Buddhist Scripture), was

erected in the place where the rokubu had been killed (Yanagita 1971). In this case the

rokubu who entered the house against the will of the family head may have been himself

                      Strangers and pilgrimage in village Japan     51

to blame. Nevertheless, the family who killed him suffered misfortunes for generations

because of the dead rokubu’s grudge.

    Beside the road between Shimotsugu-mura and Furikusa-mura in Aichi Prefecture

there are seven tombstones called Tombs of Seven Zatō (blind priests). Near those tombs

is a slope called zatō-zaka, where once seven zatō got lost and asked a man who was

passing by to help them. However, instead of telling them the right way to go, this man

mischievously told them the wrong way. Consequently, the zatō got lost again, fell into

Lake Biwa and drowned. Due to the deceased zatō's retribution, the family members and

all descendants of the mischievous man suffered eye diseases for generation upon

generation (Yanagita 1971).

    According to Kikuchi Teruo, a family in Tōno-chō, Iwate Prefecture, had psychotic

children generation after generation until the 1930s. The family asked an itako (shaman)

to find the reason for this misfortune. They were told that one of their ancestors allowed a

rokubu to stay in their house, but had robbed and killed them and then buried them under

the floor. The misfortune was therefore due to the murdered rokubu’s retribution, and the

house had to be destroyed in order to collect the bones, so that a Buddhist service (kuyō)

for the dead could be performed to exorcize the power of the retribution (tatari). Several

years after these suggestions by the itako, the family destroyed the house to rebuild it. To

their surprise, they found three human skulls under the floor. In one of them there was a

hole. They took the skulls to a nearby temple to be buried properly and held a service for

the dead. After that kuyō, nothing bad occurred in the family any more (Nomura 1984).

    The unexpected misfortunes of rokubu or pilgrims narrated in the oral histories

described above were certainly not all fictitious. According to a historical document cited

by Shinno (1980), a man named Wada Hatajirō in Edo decided to go on pilgrimage as a

rokubu and left his house after getting the necessary papers from Zōjōji (Zōjō-temple).

Wada safely returned to Edo in 1801 after 13 years of pilgrimage. However, he told the

authorities that the most fearful things on a pilgrimage were robbery (Wada was once

completely robbed during his pilgrimage); not being able to eat anything for days; and

having to take care of persons who were ill on the way. As it was required for a pilgrim to

take care of sick people, he once had to do so for four or five days until another pilgrim

came by and took over the job. However if nobody came, the pilgrim could not leave for

a month or more. If the sick person eventually died, there was a rule that a pilgrim was

expected to bury the dead there, but was allowed to take the dead person’s belongings.

    In Hisamatsu-chō, Takaoka-gun, Kōchi Prefecture, a small stone statue (ishi-jizō)

stands by a road near the beach. A story is associated with this stone: once someone

discovered a deceased woman pilgrim on the road, but without offering even incense

sticks to the corpse, they put it in an empty barrel and let it float out to sea. However, it

eventually returned to the shore, and a pine tree grew near the spot. After that, a will-o’-

the wisp (hinotoma) flew there every night. Also, anybody who passed by the pine tree

fell ill. Since people thought that such illness was due to the dead pilgrim’s mystical

retribution, they erected the stone statue (Katsurai 1948, 1954).

    Certain legends are similarly associated with tombs or mounds. In Sagamiko-chō,

Kanagawa Prefecture, there is a mound (tsuka) called yamabushi-zuka that is associated

with a yamabushi (an ascetic who trained himself in the mountains and often lived inside

a cave to practise shugyō). Yamabushi travelled a lot from village to village visiting

houses and curing sick people, using techniques based on teachings of esoteric

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan   52

Buddhism. Once a village headman named Suzuki refused to receive a yamabushi in his

house. The yamabushi then said something bad about Suzuki, so Suzuki got angry with

him and killed him with his sword. Since then the soul of the murdered yamabushi cursed

Suzuki’s branch family. Therefore Suzuki erected a tomb to worship the soul of the dead,

this tomb being the yamabushi-zuka (Yanagita 1971).

   There was also a yamabushi-zuka in Ikeda-machi, Nagano Prefecture. Long ago, a

yamabushi lived there inside a shrine forest and molested women nearby. Villagers

caught him, buried him alive and built a mound, the yamabushi-zuka. It is said that if a

person touches the mound, they will become ill (Yanagita 1971).

   Occasionally yamabushi became victims themselves. A legend about a yamabushi-

zuka in Itoigawa City, Niigata Prefecture, indicates that a yamabushi, whose possessions

had all been stolen, died from deep despair. The thief, however, became so worried about

the retribution that might follow, that he buried the corpse of the yamabushi and erected a

mound where the yamabushi died (Yanagita 1971).

   The above descriptions suggest that the image of the stranger was ambiguous. While

pilgrims and other strangers were believed to have the magical power to bring good luck

to village inhabitants, at the same time they were also held to be dangerous. Villagers

thought that strangers should be killed if they did something harmful or disturbing, yet at

the same time they were afraid that the mounds they erected to placate the souls of the

dead might curse the people and the families concerned. In other words, the villagers felt

that strangers do not stop employing mystical power even after they are killed, and that

when you kill strangers or do something bad to them, you had better anticipate the

retribution that might befall you and your descendants.

   Katsurai (1977), a folklorist in Kōchi Prefecture, stated that in uncultivated lands far

from villages and towns in Shikoku a great number of tombs for pilgrims (henro) and

rokubu who died on the way can be found. Among those travellers there must have been

a considerable number of people who were killed by poor villagers because they had

much money.

                                  Stigmatized families

According to Katsurai (1977), a young man in Hata-gun, Kōchi Prefecture, wanted to

marry a girl, but he was refused by her parents because his family was believed to have

ancestors who had killed a pilgrim. Because of this crime the man’s family line

apparently had been the target of a curse by the soul of the deceased pilgrim for

generations.2 Thus villagers avoided any marriage relationship with this family.

   Katsurai (1977) cites one more example. In Sushitosa-mura, Hata-gun, Kōchi

Prefecture, a certain family is known whose ancestors had received a pilgrim in their

house. They realized that the pilgrim had a lot of money, so they murdered him in order

to steal it. Thus they became wealthy. According to belief however, retribution by the

murdered pilgrim befell the descendants of this family, who suffered various misfortunes

and had handicapped children over the succeeding generations. In another similar case, a

family never had a son who could be heir, so they were always forced to adopt sons-in-

law; also the present family head is an adopted son (Katsurai 1977).

                      Strangers and pilgrimage in village Japan     53

    Those families whose ancestors are believed to have killed pilgrims are referred to as

ie-suji (house or family line) and are stigmatized from generation to generation.3 One

reason certain families were associated with the robbing pilgrims seems to be that in

villages consisting of poor households during the Edo period, families that suddenly

became wealthy for unclear reasons were likely to be seen as a serious threat to other

villagers and were targets of envy. To counteract the possible threat posed by the newly

rich, stories about their ancestors murdering pilgrims would begin to circulate.

                             Pilgrims welcomed and feared

In Hida, Nagano Prefecture, there is a stone monument called the Three Thousand

Mounds. The following legend is associated with this monument. Once there was a man

who welcomed pilgrims, invited them to stay in his house for a night and gave them

meals. When the number of pilgrims reached 3,000, he erected a monument for the

repose of the souls of the pilgrims (Yanagita 1971).

    Taneda Santōka (1882–1940), a Haiku poet, spent 7 years altogether on pilgrimages.

He started his last pilgrimage for Shikoku in 1939. According to his diary, he often

stayed at henro-yado (special inns for pilgrims). The pilgrims brought rice along and paid

only for firewood for cooking. There were no futons to sleep on. Pilgrims made it a rule

not to stay in ordinary inns, where meals and futons for sleeping were provided. Even if

they tried to stay in such places, they were usually refused.

    Often houses were provided by rural communities where villagers willingly received

pilgrims to stay and gave them meals. Such houses are called zenkon’yado, which means

a house through which people obtain Buddhist merit for receiving pilgrims. Moreover,

pilgrims were also often entertained in wayside shrines (tsujidō). However, the kindness

of villagers did not make life easier for the pilgrims. Pilgrims always tried hard to beg for

food three to seven times a day. Begging was required on pilgrimages, and there was a

rule for pilgrims that they must beg at least 21 times during one period of pilgrimage

(Shinno 1980:138–43).

    On mainland Japan (Honshū) there were organized associations (settai-kō) set up for

the purpose of taking care of pilgrims. Such settai-kō also went to Shikoku to treat

pilgrims inside the compound of a shrine or temple. For example, an association called

Kishū Settai-kō was organized in Wakayama in 1819, and members of the association

went to Yakuōji Temple in Awa (Tokushima Prefecture). It was customary for the

association to visit this place bringing with them different kinds of food and other items

such as rice, red beans, pickles, pickled ume (plums), tofu, soy sauce, dried persimmons,

miso, firewood, some money, waraji (sandals woven from susuki grass), etc. All these

things were given to the pilgrims until the early twentieth century (Shinno 1980). Another

way of taking care of pilgrims was on an individual basis. Rice, mikan (mandarin

oranges), cakes, and money were given to pilgrims by individual families. This custom

continued until recently on Shōdo Island.

    A third way of providing for pilgrims was based on the community. One example can

be cited from Iio, Tokushima Prefecture. Three youth groups from three hamlets

consisting of young men aged from 16 to 30 collected rice, red beans, rice cakes and

toilet paper from every house of their hamlet several days before the 4th of the Third

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    54

Month of the lunar (or old) calendar. On that day the three youth groups gathered inside

the compound of Fujii Temple and cooked rice with red beans and other food. They then

distributed the food to the pilgrims, and in the evening had a good time drinking sake

together.

    A somewhat different view of pilgrims was held by villagers in the Tokushima region.

Until recently beggars lived nearby in the dry river bed of the Lower Yoshino basin. The

villagers knew this, but when the beggars came to beg for food, they gave them what they

wanted because they said that beggars put on the white dress of pilgrims (Shinno 1980).

    Relatively recent legends include a story showing the traditional idea of the stranger.

There was a pack horse driver in Aichi Prefecture who complained on the last day of the

year that there had been no customers. On the way home, he found a leper lying under a

pine tree. He thought that his ill luck was still better than that of the leper. After taking

care of the leper, he put him on the back of his horse and took him home. Since the leper

had a bad smell, he laid him down in a corner of the part of the house without flooring.

The next morning, which was the first day of the New Year, the leper was still lying

there. However, while he shook the man to wake him up, he found that the leper had been

transformed into gold bullion (Yanagita 1948).

    There is a similar story in Esashi-gun, Iwate Prefecture, concerning five rokubu, who

were kindly received in a house on the last day of the year. According to this legend, the

next day the rokubu had been transformed into five boxes of gold (Yanagita 1948).

    In Iyayama, Tokushima Prefecture, a family received seven travellers as guests on the

last day of the year. The next day, the first day of the New Year, these travellers all had

been transformed into the Seven Gods of Good Luck.

    Legends of a similar kind can be found in Aomori, Niigata, Fukui, Kagoshima

(Koshiki Islands) and Okinawa Prefectures (Yanagita 1948). These stories imply that if

you kindly receive a leper, a rokubu, or other strangers, you will receive gold or the Gods

of Good Luck.

    Around 1579 Tei Yasokichi in Awa (Tokushima Prefecture), who was suffering from

leprosy, went as a rokubu on a pilgrimage of Shikoku, but died on the way. Villagers who

found his body buried it and erected a mound (rokubu-zuka). Legend had it that when

they prayed to the mound any illness was cured. There were many people who visited the

mound to cure illnesses (Yanagita 1971). The message of this legend seems to be that if

villagers bury the corpse of a pilgrim, a rokubu or any other stranger in or near the

village, good fortune would be granted.

                      What made people set out on a pilgrimage?

According to one of the documents written by the Tanaka family of the village of Miura,

Ehime Prefecture, whose elders served as headmen for generations from 1753 to the end

of the Edo period:

       at times of drought or continuous cold rain (in the summer) farmers went

       out to other provinces as beggars (or pilgrims)… Saisuke, a poor farmer,

       his wife and two children went off on a pilgrimage on the 4th day of the

                     Strangers and pilgrimage in village Japan     55

       Second Month, 1803. Saisuke died of illness during the pilgrimage. Yet

       his family members returned home safely.

                                                  (cited in Shinno 1980:36–7)

This document shows that poor farmers also made pilgrimages for the purpose of

overcoming hunger.

    During the 110 years that records were kept by the Tanaka headmen 53 persons went

on pilgrimage and other travels, and among these, 31 went on a pilgrimage of the Eighty-

eight Holy Places (reijō) of Shikoku, while 14 went to worship at the Ise Shrine. For poor

farmers the main motive for pilgrimage certainly was their poverty (Shinno 1980). Four

people disappeared or died during their travels. Those who went on the pilgrimage to

Shikoku included nine women and three children. This shows that some pilgrims went as

families. Among all 53 there was only one individual who went to Dōgo Hot Spring in

order to cure an illness (Shinno 1980). This person could have been a wealthy landowner.

While the records of the Tanaka family are just one example, they give some idea about

the frequency of pilgrimage among farmers, as well as the rates of death during

pilgrimages.

    It is also said that some elderly people or lepers who could not work any more due to

physical weakness often went on pilgrimages to find a place to die. Another motive for a

pilgrimage was to hold a Buddhist service for the departed souls of one’s spouse,

children, parents, other relatives or ancestors. Also, for certain villages in Ehime and in

Hiroshima Prefecture, a pilgrimage to Shikoku was a necessary rite of passage (shugyō)

for young people. It was only after this that boys became full members of the community,

and girls were qualified to become wives (Takeda 1969). Among the pilgrims in Shikoku

those in yakudoshi (unlucky ages) often went to exorcize unlucky ages.3

    To take a most recent example of the pilgrimage in Shikoku in 1996, a memorial

service for a deceased son was the motivation of a middle-aged couple for going there as

a henro. Some of those who lost their spouses, parents or children in the devastating

earthquake in the Hanshin region on 17 January 1995, set out on pilgrimages to Shikoku.

Mr Shigematsu (52) and his wife (49), who lost their son of 20 in the earthquake, are one

example. They began the pilgrimage to Shikoku in the summer of 1995, returning there to

continue whenever Mr Shigematsu found some free time. They completed the pilgrimage

visiting all 88 temples by the end of 1996. The Shigematsu family visited the temples by

car, but wore the white dress of the henro. During their travels, they dreamed of their son,

leaving them with the sense that they had met him. After returning home to Hiroshima,

they said that they want to go on another pilgrimage in Shikoku in order to meet their

son. It is said that Shikoku (shi=four, koku=countries) can metaphorically also be

understood as the Land of the Dead, as shi can also mean ‘death’ (Asahi Shinbun, 19

January 1996).

    In the summer of 1996 I met a middle-aged man and his wife at the Reianji, one of the

88 temples in Shikoku. They told me that they decided to make a pilgrimage from Tokyo,

and that the purpose of their pilgrimage was to hold a Buddhist memorial service (kuyō)

at the 88 temples for the departed soul of the man’s mother who had died recently.

    Even though pilgrims are ordinary human beings, their nature is, in a sense, liminal, as

they do not live like ordinary human beings in a permanent residence, but are travelling

around. They might bring good luck as a kind of stranger-god, but they could also be

                      Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan    56

dangerous. It was believed in the Shikoku region that the staff of a pilgrim could cure

illness if it touched the patient’s body. The cards given to temples by pilgrims could be

used magically for protecting one’s house against fire. However, the supernatural power

of pilgrims was also feared because people believed that their power could be used

against them. Thus pilgrims were on one hand sacred, but on the other hand they could

possibly be thieves, yet if they were killed, the souls of the pilgrims could curse the

villagers.

    Villagers who help pilgrims may also feel they want to get rid of them whenever

possible. When wheelchair-bound pilgrims come to a village, villagers may push it to the

border of their village in order to pass the burden of helping onto the next village. The

next village in turn again pushes the pilgrim along. This seems partially to be a

welcoming act by villagers who believe that pilgrims may bring good luck to them.

However, villagers also state, according to Shinno (1980), that if pilgrims fall dead on the

road inside their village, they have to bury them and provide funerals for them. However,

if they leave the deceased there, retribution may befall them for their neglect. Therefore,

they quickly push the wheelchairs on in order to avoid all such troubles. Villagers thus

have ambivalent feelings towards pilgrims, and pilgrims are both welcomed and feared.

    Setouchi Harumi, a writer who became a Buddhist nun, and who spent her childhood

near the basin of the Yoshino River, Shikoku, wrote that when parents scolded children,

they used to say, “You shall be given to o-henro-san (pilgrims)”. The idea of a pilgrim

thus brought fear to children. Inhabitants in Shikoku seem to have thought that pilgrims

were creatures from a different or ‘extra-ordinary’ world in both temporal and spatial

terms, and they were both respected and feared (Pitt-Rivers 1968; Shinno 1980).

                             Turner’s model of communitas

Finally, I would like to make a few comments on Turner’s model of communitas4 in

relation to Japanese pilgrimage. While I am much indebted to his writings, I have some

reservations about his model of communitas. The concept of communitas seems useful in

some of the pilgrimage cases. For example, the purpose of the pilgrimage practised by

Takamure Itsue in 1918 in Shikoku was exactly congruent with the model of communitas,

namely, temporary release from mundane life, and the search for equality (Hoshino

1981). However, diverse cases seen in the legends and other documents discussed in this

paper indicate that the concept of communitas is of little value to understand most

pilgrimage journeys.

   Turner states that:

       The social mode appropriate to all pilgrimages represents a mutually

       energizing compromise between structure and communitas, in theological

       language, a forgiveness of sins, where differences are accepted or

       tolerated rather than aggravated into grounds of aggressive opposition.

                                                                      (1974:208)

We have seen that any number of conflicts existed between pilgrims and local

inhabitants.

                      Strangers and pilgrimage in village Japan     57

    The diverse motives for pilgrimage described above, such as poverty, physical

weakness due to illness or old age, to hold a Buddhist service for the departed souls of

one’s relatives, physical and spiritual training for young boys and girls, or to exorcize

unlucky ages etc., may suggest that the model of communitas is not useful to understand

these cases of pilgrimage; in none of these cases was communitas the pilgrims’ ultimate

goal.

    Turner’s claim that pilgrimage is unstructured and spontaneous is belied by the fact

that there were rules Japanese pilgrims and villagers needed to observe and duties they

had to fulfil. As described earlier, when pilgrims found sick people on the road, they had

to help them; if villagers found the corpse of a pilgrim on their territory, they had to bury

him or her and organize the funerals; pilgrims also had to beg for food at certain

prescribed times during one era of pilgrimage. Moreover, there was a rule for pilgrims

not to stay in ordinary inns but in special inns for pilgrims (henro-yado).

    Since the early Edo period, various kinds of group pilgrimages were organized by

religious associations (kō) on the basis of the village community (Hoshino 1981). Turner

discusses communitas as ‘…a model of society as a homogeneous, unstructured

community, whose boundaries are ideally coterminous with those of human species’

(1969:132). However, it seems unlikely that these community-based pilgrimages in Japan

could be coalesced into a larger unified congregation (cf. Sallnow 1981), as essentially

group boundaries were kept due to the nature of the Japanese village community whose

strong solidarity is well documented.

                                        Conclusion

The concept of the stranger, as formulated in earlier periods, as noted by Origuchi,

appears to have been greatly transformed into the notion of the stranger as being

dangerous, or a person to be avoided. In relation to this change, as Komatsu (1985) has

argued, the stranger was once accepted, but later rejected in Japanese folk society.

Despite this change the traditional category of the stranger has never died. Otherwise

pilgrimage itself would not have flourished in Japan. Various customs in the Shikoku and

Saikoku (Western Japan) regions in particular continually supported pilgrimages.

   Certain families whose ancestors are said to have killed strangers (rokubu, pilgrims,

etc.) are believed to have suffered various kinds of misfortune due to the retribution

exacted by the murdered strangers. Often these families would suddenly become wealthy,

but were perceived as a threat by most villagers who were poor. They thus stigmatized

the rich families as mystically dangerous families. Behind this process lies the concept of

stranger whose mystical power afflicted families with various kinds of misfortune for

many generations.

   The concept of the ‘stranger-god’ is not unique to Japan. It is widely distributed in the

world. In Homeric Greece, for instance, it was believed that a stranger or beggar might be

the god Zeus, who might take the form of the stranger or beggar travelling from door to

door in order to inspect how people observed the moral duty of hospitality. Therefore it is

dangerous to ill-treat even a wretched wanderer in case he might be some heavenly god

(Hocart 1973:78). In India the stranger or guest is himself a god, or rather gods, for he is

‘compounded of all the gods’ (Hocart 1973[1927]:81). As Pitt-Rivers stated, ‘the stranger

                       Pilgrimages and spiritual quests in Japan        58

belongs to the “extra-ordinary” world, and the mystery surrounding him allies him to the

sacred’ (1968:20). Finally, Japanese pilgrimage is a polymorphic phenomenon.

Therefore, it seems difficult to assume a priori that the concept of Turner’s communitas

could be used to understand all the features of pilgrimage in the Japanese context. In

short, I have argued that the sacred position of the stranger in the Japanese context makes

him a sender of not only good luck but also of afflictions and misfortunes, depending on

the behaviour of the host.

                                              Notes

A summarized version of this paper was read at the ninth meeting of The Japan

Anthropology Workshop in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, in May, 1996. I wish to

thank Keith Brown, Theodore Bestor and Jane Bachnik for revising the English style and

supplying helpful comments which are incorporated in this paper. I am also grateful to

John H.Stewart for his assistance in the writing of this manuscript while I was in the

Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan during the period from August to

December, 1996. Support for my travel to Santiago de Compostela was provided by the

Japan Foundation for which I am grateful.

   1 Kūkai was born in Sanuki (Zentsūji City, Kagawa Prefecture), studied Buddhism and Chinese

      classics in Kyoto, and did shugyō (spiritual and ascetic training) by visiting various sacred

      places on the top of mountains mostly located in Awa (Tokushima Prefecture), Tosa (Kōchi

      Prefecture), Iyo (Ehime Prefecture) and Yamato (Nara Prefecture). As previous chapters in

      this book have noted, he went to China during the Tang Dynasty to study Buddhism, and

      after returning home founded the Japanese Shingon sect of Buddhism. He has been widely

      worshipped by the people throughout the country to this very day.

   2 This is very similar to the cases of dog-spirit holding families in Kōchi Prefecture, which I

      studied sometime ago, whose members are believed to possess other people and to cause

      them to become ill, suffer accidents or become mentally deranged (Yoshida 1967, 1984).

   3 Unlucky ages are: 13, 25, 37, 49, 73, 85 (for men and women); ages ending with 2 or 5, e.g.

      22, 25, 32, 35, 42, 45, etc. for men and ages ending with 3, 7, 9, 29 for women; (Takeda

      1969:156–62).

   4 Victor Turner made an analytical distinction between structure, society organized in terms of

      status, and communitas, whose salient features are anti-structure, homogeneity, equality,

      unity, release from ordinary life, etc. (1969:106–7, 131; 1978:252). He used the concept of

      communitas to understand pilgrimage (1974:166–230; 1978).

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