Pilgrimage– tag –

From Japan's high-tech cities to its quiet countryside, signs of Japanese spirituality are everywhere. Even in the concrete maze of Tokyo, stone Buddha statu...

Visitors enjoy a cool boat ride at Takamatsu's Ritsurin Garden Shikoku, the smallest and wildest of Japan’s four main islands, has been a place to return to ...

An ascetic scales chains toward the peak of Mt. Ishizuchi, known as “Tengu-dake”, as seen from the summit shrine.  Straddling the border ...

The craggy cliffs of Mt. Ishizuchi, Shikoku’s tallest mountain, are draped in heavy iron chains. White-clad practitioners of Shugendō, “the Path of Cultivati...

Japan’s iconic torii gates are everywhere, from bustling streetcorners to soaring mountain peaks, and Shikoku’s no exception. These gates mark sacred space i...

The Shikoku Pilgrimage is a 1,300 kilometer circuit linking 88 temples across the island of Shikoku. Traditionally completed on foot over 45 to 50 days, the ...

Situated near Japan’s oldest hot spring in Matsuyama City, the legend of Ishite-ji, or Stone-Hand Temple, sits at the heart of the Henro. Origins and History...

Clinging to cave-pocked cliffs high in the Kuma Mountains, Iwaya-ji has since antiquity been one of the Henro’s most idyllic and imposing sacred sites. ...

With origins stretching back to the earliest days of Buddhism in Japan, Ehime’s Daiho-ji, or “Temple of the Great Treasure,” lives up to its name with ancien...

Inspired by a dream and funded by samurai lords, Kochi City’s Chikurin-ji is one of the pilgrimage’s largest and most beautiful temples. Guided experiences l...