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Sacred mountain's temples and shrines a wholly spiritual experience

Sunday, January 13, 2002

By Jono David

OSAKA, Japan - An eerie hum wafted through the cedar trees of the sacred mountain Koya-san, creeping up on me as I considered angles for photographs of the arresting two-storied red-orange Konpon Daito Hall.

The drone spun me a full 360 degrees, but all I could see were the various sacred wooden buildings on the site, some fatigued by centuries exposed to the elements.

Beyond, the blackness of the rich, moist forest enveloped my imagination with spooky ideas. The curious vibration desisted, supplanted by a hurried shuffle across the pebbled pathways. Growing louder, the march came to an abrupt halt, and again the cadence drifted round my ears.

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Spinning round once more, my eyes fell on young monks in midmorning prayers, wearing flowing robes of maroon and saffron, streaming from edifice to edifice. Forsaking the Daito, I took aim at the monks, zeroing in on their closely shaven heads, their entwined fingers, their fluent vestments, their wooden geta clogs, their discipline.

I perceived a coyness, as if eye contact with a camera-wielding tourist would somehow contaminate these sacred moments of invocation. Perhaps they would even be sent tumbling the 3,000 feet back down to earth, where my excursion began.

Slinking from the din of Osaka some 125 miles to the southeast, it wasn't long before the train was slowed by the incline's tug as the metal snake writhed its way between the folds of the eight forested peaks which hoist Koya-san above the world.

At the end of the line, I boarded a cable car that ascended the final few hundred feet at a staggering 35 degrees to the place where the monks go to find sanctuary in the mecca of the Shingon School of Esoteric Buddhism. The monks I had been observing, trained and obeisant, are seeking the mysterious kingdom of life within their beings, to align a harmony between man and nature.

My hair is longer, but my mission was shorter. I came to these sacred hills in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, for a couple of days' rest by trading urban disorder for nature's array, by sliding out of a summer loitering in November into the crispness of autumn. Kobo Daishi Kukai, however, has been resting and meditating here for more than a millennium, or so some 10 million believers say.

The founder of the Buddhist mission here in A.D. 816 is, in fact, regarded as more than a saint, a scholar, and inventor of Japanese kana syllabary, but as a savior, a Boddhisattva. Because he is interred here, a visit to Koya-san is a veritable pilgrimage, a notion I did not look upon lightly.

After getting out of the cable car, I took a bus the final few hairpin miles to town, only to be dumped in the midst of a clamor I hoped I had abandoned. Central Koya-san is an archetypal tourist town, replete with traffic, bus loads of day-trippers, and the obligatory omiyage souvenir shops. Luckily, though, downtown is a single country lane of about half a mile, and all other roads lead to tranquillity.

With more than 2,000 temples, shrines, stupas, towers and assembly buildings in the area, my sightseeing plate was full. Knowing I could never take in all the points of interest, however, I selected a significant few, beginning with Kongobu-ji Temple.

I figured this central monastery would be a logical place to commence since it is the headquarters of the Shingon School and is also the residence of Koya-san's abbot. I strode around the lumber structure, admiring its craftsmanship, its homely emanation, wondering if the head monk had taken up gardening as a pastime, or if the gardener could find no other way to enlightenment. Whoever it was, he led me up the garden path and round the pond.

From there, I took in Reihokan, or the Treasure Museum. Built in 1921 as a repository for cultural treasures, it stores and displays some 70,000 items, including paintings, sculptures and calligraphy. I found myself alone in the chilly galleries, lost on the minimal mountain scenes depicted in hanging scrolls, the black ink lines drawing on my inspiration to complete the vistas.

I then stepped back outside into one of those scenes, but warmed by the fiery reds and oranges of autumn's turning foliage. I meandered beneath the vivid ceiling, unhurried and becalmed, taking delight in the delight of Japanese visitors who seem to have perfected the art of simple appreciation for nature's palette.

When the colors began to fade with the setting sun, I headed to Fumonin Temple, where I had prebooked a night's lodging. Passing through the main gate at the top of a set of stone steps, I was greeted by two boys in their late teens artfully setting out mint green slippers for what looked like a brigade of other guests. When they greeted me by name, it became apparent that I was the only foreign visitor who would be employing a pair of those little sandals that night.

I left my boots and Western expectations at the genkan, or entrance, and followed one of the adolescent hosts to my room. We shuffled quietly along a darkened corridor flanked by a moss-infested garden to the right and vacant but stylistic tatami mat rooms to the left, animated by intricately painted fusuma paper doors.

When at last I was left alone in my sanctified chamber, I sank to the tatami floor, inhaling the fresh scent of the straw mats, realizing that the room resembled my Osaka apartment. But when I turned to the window and glimpsed the neatly pruned garden reflecting in the still of the pond, I felt an ease wrap around me. Then I shrank into the crispness of the provided yukata robe.

Shortly thereafter, the noisy throng of the other guests galloped up the stairwell along with my Shojin-ryori dinner, served on two lacquer trays. Kneeling before the vegetarian provisions of tempura, tofu and miso soup, I considered each morsel for its color, its art. There was nothing unanticipated set out before me, save for the flavor, the manner, the deliberate presentation of each tiny dish.

I took up my chopsticks, not with haste, but with self-possession, just as my host had solicited me to do, and proceeded to savor each mouthful with dilatory consideration.

By the time I had completed my supper, the sake rice wine I had been drinking was weighing on my extremities, seducing me to sleep. I wanted to resist the drowsiness that felt like a drug, for to capitulate was to relinquish nirvana, and sleep would only bring on the morning and a regrettable departure.

At 4 a.m., however, I was addled by the elderly guests' chatter, which had perforated my washi paper windows. My shushes fell on deaf ears, their gossip only quelled with a direct order to talk in hushed voices. But at 6:20 a.m., I was awakened once more, summoned this time by the morning call to prayers.

Throwing back the warmth of my quilted futon bed, I hastily dressed, and headed to the Hondo, or prayer room. Squinting in dawn's first light, I entered the dark and richly ornate hall shrouded in plumes of incense and fragrance. I knelt among the senior tour group as if to intentionally draw their attention away from the Inge, or priest, marking my territory on a patch of the red carpet.

For 30 minutes, a drone not unlike that I heard at Daito, or even traditional Mongolian throat singing, called to the Buddha. The only other sounds were the clinks and clangs of gongs and rattles and cymbals, and the offerings of coins placed upon a pair of low tables supporting porcelain incense bowls.

After the service, I retreated to my room, then to the communal bath for morning ablutions, and again to chambers for the morning meal. Once filled, dressed, packed, and contented, I departed the equanimity of the temple for the underworld of Okuno-in Cemetery.

This burial ground, one of Japan's largest and most renowned, is dark and ghostly, dwarfed by towering sugi cypress trees, camouflaged in moist, fleshy moss. A mystical walk down a mile-long pathway led me to Toro-do, or Lantern Hall, which houses hundreds of lamps including two which are said to have been burning for nearly 1,000 years.

Behind Toro-do, disciples fingered strings of rosary beads as they paid silent respects to Kobo Daishi Kukai, preserved in a mausoleum.

En route, I was beguiled by tomb after tomb, monument after monument, of faithful followers, encrusted by time and emerald vegetation. Beneath the verdant sway of the canopy, I felt as if I had stepped out of time into an ageless world of phantasm. But when my eyes fell upon a modern-day rocket-shaped tomb, I was launched back to the present, and the train station.

Slinking my way down from the sky, I headed home, pampered, rested, invigorated by the place where the monks go. Within me, a contented hum reverberated, but not so loud as to turn the heads of the other passengers.

Jono David is a free-lance writer and photographer who lives in Osaka, Japan.