Heisei 31 Good Friday
My wife and I spent last Friday with her son, who was visiting from Tokyo. We visited three areas which we'd all been to before, but had particular memories for both of them. We went to Mizunomi Jizuson and then on to Jūsan Pass. Since the pass road passes under the Ikoma Skyline toll road, but doesn't connect to it, we decend ⅔ of the way down the mountain before we could climb back up to the Shigi Mountain temple & shrine complex. As we decended, we paused at the house where Ayako's late father lived. Mostly to humor me, we spent the rest of the afternoon at Hōryūji temple before returning to Yao, where her son was staying. She always complains that my videos are too long, so I posted the adventure in 3 sections on Facebook. This YouTube post has all 3 parts joined together. (The video makes extensive use of Google Earth 3D Cities imagery, which is an excellent tool for helping people unfamiliar with the area understand the locations of the various places we visited.)
He son has a particular fondness for Mizunomi, which he often road to on a bicycle as a child, pushing it up the mountain on the ancient foot road over 13 Pass. (It has this strange name, I suppose, because it connected the Nara Basin with the 13 villages aligned along the foot of the Ikoma-Takayasu ridge). The foot road must be very old. Tradition has it that a Jizo image (the Buddhist saint who protects travelers) was first erected at the spring in the Nara Period. Now there are scores of Jizo images at the temple and lining the foot road below. He walked up the trail in less than twice the time it took his mother and I to drive up the steep, narrow, and winding road. Oh, to be young again!
After leaving 13 Pass, we went to the temple complex on Mt. Shigi. Tradition has it the Prince Shōtoku visited the Shinto shrine on Shigisan on his way to do battle with the powerful anti-Buddhist Mononobe Clan in Yao. The father of Japanese Buddhism is credited with establishing a number of the early temples, including the one on the mountain top, and another on his own estate, which we also visited after we left here.
For an explanation of why all the tigers are displayed at Chōgosonshiji temple, check out this link:
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After our visit to the temple, we stopped for a few minutes at the home of my wife's late father.
Prince Shōtoku and the Empress Suiko (for who he served as regent) established numerous temples, including one on or near his own estate. That temple was destroyed by fire in 670, but was rebuilt in about 711 and renamed Hōryūji. The pagoda is thought to be the oldest wooden building in the world. Our visit there was very brief, as we relaxed in the area along the western edge of the temple compound, and this video only gives a taste of the textures of the afternoon. The temple contains numerous artistic and historical treasures. You can read more about it here: