Three weeks into my trek, as I ascended a steep path towards Yokomine-ji, the 60th of 88 temples alongside the Shikoku pilgrimage, I discovered myself enveloped by an unforgiving fog. In an on the spot, the colourful forest round me — largely purple cedar timber and fern bushes — pale, leaving me in a world of muted grey. Able to make out solely the faintest shapes within the surrounded timber, I used to be satisfied that I’d stumbled into an eerie fairy story.
Quietly, within the distance, I started to listen to a refrain of small bells. Then, all of the sudden, the celebration of unintentional musicians got here into view: a big group of Japanese pilgrims who, coming towards me, all stopped neatly in line to let me stroll previous.
Within an hour, the fog had begun to elevate. Within two, it was gone completely, changed by an equally unforgiving noon solar. In the newfound readability of daylight, I started to marvel: Had the courteous band of fellow pilgrims existed solely in my thoughts?
The pilgrimage on Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s 4 important islands, is a 750-mile route that hyperlinks 88 Buddhist temples, every of which claims a connection to Kukai, a celebrated monk — posthumously often known as Kobo Daishi — who, after coming back from a visit to China within the ninth century, based one of many main colleges of Buddhism in Japan.
After Kukai’s loss of life in 835, wanderers started making pilgrimages to the websites on Shikoku that had been affiliated along with his life and work: his delivery and burial locations, the caves the place he meditated, the websites of assorted spiritual rites. Later, these websites had been linked, and the temples and shrines had been formally numbered.
As is true with many modern-day pilgrimages, the ranks of Shikoku pilgrims — as soon as solely practitioners of Shingon Buddhism, one of many main colleges of Buddhism in Japan — have grown to incorporate vacationers with a extra numerous array of motivations. And so the regular succession of monks, clergymen and devoted Buddhists has given technique to younger folks on journeys of self-discovery, older hikers having fun with their retirement and even international guests like me, who know little of the language and customs however are drawn by the journey of the trek, by Shikoku’s breathtaking views and by its elegant classes on Japanese cultural heritage.
And the pilgrimage is less complicated now than it was. Although pilgrims historically accomplished the route on foot, guided bus excursions now carry many guests to the websites. (The level for many individuals, in any case, is to go to all 88 temples, to not endure the hardships of a 750-mile hike.) Others decide to take personal vehicles, or to trek for a part of the way in which and drive (or be pushed) for the remainder.
Even for nonreligious trekkers, probably the most prized pilgrimage memento is a totally stamped nokyocho, or stamp ebook. The books have devoted pages for all the temples, at every of which a clerk applies a number of stamps and some strokes of lovely calligraphy, made utilizing a conventional brush.
One scorching afternoon I met a middle-aged German couple who advised me this was the fourth time they’d launched into the Shikoku pilgrimage. I asked why they selected to return as an alternative of attempting different treks elsewhere on the earth. During every pilgrimage, they stated, they found one thing completely completely different. And the food is phenomenal, they added.
Another day, I walked for a couple of hours behind two Japanese males via rice fields in Kochi Prefecture, which traces the island’s concavely curved southern coast. I ended at a relaxation hut alongside the way in which and located the 2 males there, joined by two different males, all of them smoking and chatting.
In my restricted Japanese and their restricted English, they advised me that they had been all from Shikoku. Two of them stroll two days annually, whereas the opposite two journey by automobile, ferrying the baggage and becoming a member of the walkers on the temples to worship collectively.
“Wait, how long will it take you to complete the whole pilgrimage then?” I asked.
One of the boys threw his arms into the air. “Who knows? Decades!” he stated, they usually all laughed.
Wherever I went on the island, a way of peacefulness appeared to observe. In Shikoku, nearly with out fail, the folks I encountered had been form. They appeared content material. Though I’m not a religious person, the silence and the vastness of the panorama — and the warmheartedness of the folks I met — created an abiding aura of serenity.
One customized that distinguishes the folks of Shikoku is the observe of osettai, the act of giving items to the pilgrims. These items come within the type of food, drink, trinkets, automobile rides, meals, a spot to sleep — even, at instances, small sums of cash. More than as soon as I noticed drivers cease in the midst of the street handy out goodies from their automobile home windows.
One night, after having been granted free lodging from a temple (which occurred twice), I heard a knock on the door of my hut. A younger girl, a temple assistant who spoke no English, bowed and handed me a slip of paper: “Miss Marta, you are welcome to use the temple’s bath free of charge,” it stated in Japanese.
In whole, over the course of my 28 days spent visiting all 88 temples, I used to be additionally given: 700 yen (about $5), 11 candies, seven small truffles, seven automobile rides, six mandarin oranges, 5 rice balls, three cookies, three sweets, three cups of inexperienced tea, two crackers, two mochi, two soda cans, two multipurpose cloths, two yuzu juice cartons, one yokan (a purple bean jelly snack), one bicycle (lent to me for half a day), one bag of steamed chestnuts, one bag of cherry tomatoes, one lunch and one bowl of home made udon.
The pilgrimage’s temples are scattered alongside the perimeter of the island — some close to the coast, and a few farther into the mountainous inside. Some are grouped collectively, and others are 50 miles aside.
As a pilgrim, I usually arose early — by 5:30 a.m., within the spring — and spent a full day on the street. About 80 p.c of the route is on asphalt, largely via open fields and small cities and previous stunning shoreline. I spent a couple of days climbing up and down mountain peaks.
The fading of Japan’s rural inhabitants is dramatically evident on Shikoku. Young folks have fled to the cities or to different islands that provide a greater high quality of life. My expertise confirmed as a lot: Nearly all the younger folks I noticed had been within the capitals of the island’s 4 prefectures.
For breakfast and dinner, many pilgrims benefit from home-cooked meals offered by most minshuku, or family-operated bed-and-breakfasts, and ryokan, conventional Japanese inns. These meals normally include rice, miso soup, fish and pickled greens. For lunch, relying on one’s location, comfort shops can present a fast chew.
In spite of the delectable food, the beautiful vistas and the fascinating cultural histories, it was the folks I met who had the strongest impact on me.
At a hostel one evening I met Midori-san, a 71-year-old pilgrim who spoke no English. She confirmed me how you can behave at a big sentō, or public bathhouse.
Once, after I asked the 2 staff at a mountain temple’s stamp workplace if the temple provided free lodging, they replied that it didn’t. But, talking via a translator on my cellphone, they provided to drive me to a spot the place I might camp in a close-by valley.
A couple of days later, hoping to see the panorama from a distinct standpoint, I boarded a tiny ferry with a fellow pilgrim, Patricia, and went zigzagging for practically an hour in Uranouchi Bay. Patricia and I had been the one vacationers on board.
One very wet day, after strolling for a number of hours below a water-resistant however sweltering poncho, I made a decision to hitchhike to the subsequent temple, which was a few hours away. After I caught my thumb out on a busy street for a couple of minutes, a person in a beat-up van stopped. He spoke no English, as I discovered to be widespread on Shikoku, and I knew just a few related phrases in Japanese. Still, because the outdated van cautiously made its method up a winding street, we managed to alternate a couple of sentences.
I bought the sensation that the state of affairs enormously amused him — and I used to be proved proper when he known as his spouse on an outdated cellphone and stated, with amusing, that he had picked up a foreigner who had grown determined below a torrential downpour.
Before we parted methods, he asked me to repeat my title, and wrote it down on the again of a receipt in katakana, a Japanese alphabet generally used for international phrases. “Ma-ru-ta,” he stated aloud, sounding out the characters. And then he was gone as rapidly as he’d appeared. Grateful for the favor, and grateful to be dry, I watched his truck vanish round a bend and turned towards the trail to the temple.
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