I wrote on an earlier blog post that I was going to Shikoku for part of the Shikoku Pilgrimage (四国遍路 Shikoku Henro) or Shikoku Junrei (四国巡礼) is a multi-site pilgrimage of 88 temples associated with the Buddhist monk Kūkai (Kōbō Daishi) on the island of Shikoku, Japan. A popular and distinctive feature of the island's cultural landscape, and with a long history, large numbers of pilgrims still undertake the journey for a variety of ascetic, pious, and tourism-related purposes. I made the trip on 6th-11th December with the Buddhist group 溫暖人間, who publish a magazine and organize many Buddhist activites in Hong Kong as well as Buddhist themed tours. As the the tour was centered around the pilgrimage, my fellow travellers were very devout Buddhists (along with a couple of Catholics), with the tour food being vegetarian throughout the trip. (Which made me very fat, despite all the walking and climbing that we did, as it consisted of a lot of rice and noodles with tofu).
Normally I don't like taking part in tours due to the bad food, the early mornings and the various pit stops to go shopping, this tour was quite different. Even though we were up at about 6am every morning (5am Hong Kong time), waking up was not difficult at all as I felt that we were performing a sacred duty. We would begin by chanting the heart sutra (般若心経 Hannya Shingyō) and the tour bus would then drive us from temple to temple where we would then perform the appropriate rites. The characterisitics of each temple were quite different, some being high up on the mountain, and some in the suburbs of the city. Given the time of year we actually managed to catch all four seasons over the space of our trip - seeing the red leaves of autumn, late blooming flowers and heavy snowfall on the mountaintop. Each temple had its own story - some such as Konsen-ji (金泉寺) had a healing spring that was opened by Kukai, or the snake which set fires on the mountain to deter pilgrims at Shōsan-ji (焼山寺). (My wife who had a cold, drank the water from the spring and miraculously recovered the next day, but she bding a good Catholic refused to believe that it was due to the water). Given the packed schedule (sometimes we only spent 20-30 minutes at a given temple), every moment seemed sacred and a blessing, and all this against the backdrop of a the beautiful natural scenery of Shikoku and the inland sea.
Shikoku literally means four provinces, those of Awa, Tosa, Iyo, and Sanuki, reorganised during the Meiji period into the Prefectures of Tokushima, Kōchi, Ehime, and Kagawa. The pilgrim's journey through these four provinces is likened to a symbolic path to enlightenment, with temples 1-23 representing the idea of awakening (発心 hosshin), 24-39 austerity and discipline (修行 shugyō), 40-65 attaining enlightenment (菩提 bodai), and 66-88 entering nirvana (涅槃 nehan). We only managed to cover the first stage and expect to continue with the second stage in October of 2013. If everything is on track we will complete the five stages in 2015 which will the 1200th anniversary of the establishment of Mount Koya.
In addition to the 88 "official" temples of the pilgrimage, there are over 200 bangai — temples not considered part of the official 88. To complete the pilgrimage, it is not necessary to visit the temples in order; in some cases it is even considered lucky to travel in reverse order. (This year was one of the years where the pilgrimage was done in reverse, and thus we started from 23 and worked backwards). The pilgrimage is traditionally completed on foot, but modern pilgrims use cars, taxis, buses, bicycles, or motorcycles. The walking course is approximately 1,200 km long and can take anywhere from 30 to 60 days to complete. Although this trip was by bus, it is my intention to walk this trip sometime in the future, perhaps in my 50s when the children are grown. There is apparently great power to completing the pilgrimage and many pilgrims walk it to pray for good health or an improvement in their business or personal situation.
"Henro" (遍路) is the Japanese word for pilgrimage, and the inhabitants of Shikoku call the pilgrims o-henro-san (お遍路さん), the o (お) being an honorific. It was also considered karmically beneficial to help the pilgrims and everywhere we were shown the greatest hospitality.
They are often recognizable by their white clothing, sedge hats, and kongō-tsue or walking sticks. Alms or osettai are frequently given. (Most of us did not wear the clothing, but I did buy the white cloak. Many pilgrims begin and complete the journey by visiting Mount Kōya in Wakayama Prefecture, which was settled by Kūkai and remains the headquarters of the Shingon sect of Buddhism and there was where we ended up, despite there being quite heavy snowfall and it being very very cold. The 21 km walking trail up to Koya-san still exists, but most pilgrims use the train.
Please enjoy the pictures which were taken by my fellow pilgrim Henry - I shall discuss more about the Shingon sect and my thoughts on esoteric Buddhism in my next post.
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