Let me introduce myself. My name is Ayako Sakai. I was born in Tarumi-cho Marugame city Kagawa-ken Japan on February 24, 1983.
Visiting or living in Shikoku is something special,for this island has always been the spiritual sanctuary of the Japanese people.No other place in Japan has been visited by so many generations of people from all over the country.
They have often spent more than 60 days walking along the whole circuit of the eighty-eight temples that compose the longest,oldest and most popular pilgrimage in Japan.
Even those who have arrived here in weariness of life,in unhappiness or weak health,have usually left the island with a lighter heart,more enlightened,and in many cases in improved health.
Though today the island is quite accessible and traveling around it can be very easy, some of the eighty-eight temples still remain very hard to reach.
This pilgrimage circling the island is nationally known as O-Shikoku-san,showing that"Dear old hikoku Pilgrimage"is synonymous with this island and provides sanctuary to the soul of Japan.The scenes along the Shikoku Pilgrimage correspond well to what Shikoku offers-the Seto Inland Sea,the Uwa-kai Sea,the Pacific Ocean, the green mountains that crown a large part of the island,cosy littly towns and middle-sized cities that fringe the coasts.
Its climate is mild;the seas are dountiful;the land is fertile. Naturally local people have been content with their blessed island,even if it has remained underdeveloped since the 8th century.Uutil then the northern coast of Shikoku was among the first areas to eajoy civilization in Japan,as proved by so many archaeological findings.
Remote as it was for many centuries,however,Shikoku did not
stand aloof but obseved movements on the Inland Sea as an artery
Japan's cultural,political and economic development. On the other
hand,Shikokyu's unique attractions such as the Shikoku Pilgrimage,Kompira
worship and the Dogo Onsen Hot Spring spa have always drawn a
large number of people from the capitals and other parts of the
main island of Honshu and neighboring Kyushu.
Queted from the shikoku Bilingual Guidebook by Akiko Takemoto an Steve McCarty.The pilgrimage known as Shikoku Henro or O-Shikoku- san is the oldest and most famost in Japan.his
Circumambulating the island via the 88 Buddhist temples designated as the Sacred Places of Shikoku is meant to follow the trail kobo Daishi
(Kukai)弘法大師（空海） walked in his youth for ascetic practice,searching for the Truth.
That is why the authentic pilgrims go on food as the great saint did long ago. It takes about 60 days to hike the 1,647 km, going deep into rugged
mountains, plodding along sandy beaches, rocky coasts, through fields and hills, villages and towns. Indeed, it is a walking Zwn.
The Shikoku Pilgrimage is nonsectarian, though kukai was the founder of the Shingon sect of Japanese Buddhism. Pilgrims seem to forget their Bddhist sects in worshiping Kobo Daishi who stands far beyond factionnalism. Not all of the 88 temples are of the Shingon sect,either. It is impossible to discuss this pilgrimage without recounting the life of Kukai.
Mao(Kukai) was born in 774 in what is now Zentsuji City,the seat of Zentsu-ji Temple 善通寺, the 75th Sacred Place of Shikoku,as the third son of Saeki Yoshimichi the Lord of the County (p.46). The boy Kukai was so bright and gifted that his parents expected him to go into government service, the most respected profession at the time. When he was 15,he was sent up Kyoto,the then new capital,where he was sent up to Kyoto,the then new capital, where he studied with his maternal uncle,a great Confucianist and tutor to one of the Emperor's sons.
At,18,he entered the university and studied hard.But soon he was disappoint with the curriculum offered there - the principles of government,history,poetry,filial piety and loyalty.What he had been searching for was the ultimate truth.
Then he happened to meet a Buddhist monk,who taught him to practice a meditation called Kokuzo-gumojiho-to invoke Kokuzo, a deity of space,through mantra-reciting one million times according to the proper method-which was to enable him to acquire a phenomenal memory of teachings and principles. This made him choose Buddhism and the priesthood rather than Confucianism and bureaucracy. He left the university. It was a very hard decision for him, decause he was turning his back on the tradition and expectations of his own clan. Yet he had to.
For many years he applied himself alternately to the intense study of Buddhist texts and to meditation deep in the mountains. At 19 ,in a cave at Cape Muroto,the southeastern tip of Shikoku Island,he finally succeeded in attaining enlightenment through performing Kokuzo-gumonjiho. What he had been seeing all the while was the sky and the sea - the Pacific Ocean. In memory of this great moment,he decided to call himself Kukai 空海 -Sky and Sea.
At 24,he finished Sango Shiiki,a drama in which he compared the three principles he had already mastered-Confucianism,of Buddhism and Taoism-to demonstrate the supremacy of Buddhism. It was his final declaration of turning to Buddhism.
Yet Kukai was not satisfied with the Buddhism of those days in Japan. He was searching for something like the unity of the Buddha' teachings. Then he found the sutra that presented the Buddha Mahavairocana as idealizing the truth of the universe. But there ware passages so mysterious that no one in Japan could tell him anything about them.v So he decided to go to China. At 31 he succeeded in accompanying the envoy to T'ang China.
At the Chinese Capital,Ch'ang-an, the greatest cosmpolitan city at that time,he met Adout Hui-kuo, the 7th patriarch of Esoteric Buddhism,who had already had no less then one thousand disciple. The momet he set eyes on the young man from Japan,the adout knew he was the very person he had long been waiting for as his successor. All those years of hard study and ascetic practices had brought him so close to his Chinese master that,after three months of study under the abbot,Kukai was ordained as the 8th patriarch of Esoteric Buddhism.
At the end of the year (805),Abbot Hui-kuo passed away. Before his death,he had told Kukai to return to Japan as soon as possible to spread the teachings to increase the happiness of the people there. But how could he return soon? There were 18 years before another Japaneae mission was to come to China...
Then the Emperor of T'ang Dynasty died and a Japanese delegation came to Ch'ang-an to attend his funeral. Kukai was allowed to join their return journey. It was fortunate for the Japanese to have him back so soon, considering his great achievements in the ensuing years. In fact it was not until 34 years later that another envoy sent to China returned to Japan. Three years Kukai had passed away.
After 16months in Ch'ang-an,Kukai brought home from 247 scrolls of precious sutras,44 scrolls of Sanskrit mantras and stotras,170 scrolls of scriptural commentaries,9 kinds of ritual implements,and a number of religious images and objects. There must have also been some Chinese works of literature, language,medicine,calligraphy and art. It is generally believed that Kukai introduced measures and rules, Chinese-type medicines, varieties of seeds,as well as the arts of dyeing of makin Indian ink and writing brushes,and of building Chinese temples,bridges and embankments.
He is said to have been the first Japanese to grow tes and process it,to use coal and petrol,and to make Chinese cakes and candies.
He brought all these things things to firmly take root in the soil of Japan,greatly raising her religious and cultural standard,until at last she began to produsce her own Buddhism and her own culture. This accounts for why Kukai is often credited as a father of Japanese culture.
In fact,the first thing he did when he came bark to Japan was to reread all those enormous volumes of sutras,trying to unite the two kings of esoteric Buddhism-Kongokai(the spiritual principle) and Taizokai (the physical principle)-into one.Thus he finally created a new esoteric Buddhism which he called the Esoteric Buddhism of Shingon.
Kukai was also fortunate enough to have the Emperor Saga,a scholar,poet and admirer of dvanced culture form the Continent,as his patron and longtime friend.
He was granted possession of Mt.Koya in Kii(Wakayama Pref),where he founded a monastic center for students of meditation. In was also his spiritual home,where he wrote many books of immense value,one of which was Jujushinron in which he examined all the philosophies and religions known at that time in the Eastern world,comparing them with his own Esoteric Buddhism of Shingon.
Later the Emperor presented him with a state temple,Toji in Kyoto,as his headquarters in propagating his Esoteric Buddhism of Shingon.It focuses on this life,saying that men and women have the seed of Buddhahood within them,and that by following its precepts and practices,anyone can achieve enlightenment i n this lifetime.
Then Kukai founded the first school in Japan open to the poor as well as to the rich. A dictionary in 30 volumes which he compiled for the pupils there was the first of its kind in Japan.
It is widely believed that Kobo Daishi invented hiragana (the Japanese phonetic syllabary) and created katakana(another syllabary) through his knowledge of Sanskrit. Until then,reading and writing were restricted to scholars and aristocrats who could spend years learning thousands of Chinese characters. Now kana syllabaries enabled even common pepole to write their language phonetically.
Noblewomen also took up kana,producing fine novels,essays,diaries and poems. It was with this kana that Lady Murasaki wrote perhaps the world's first great novel,The Tale of Genji.
There are about 3,000 folktales and legends about Kobo Daishi (Kukai) told and retold all over the country. No other person in Japan has ever commanded such devotion. Many of the tales are adout how he saved people by bringing forth a spring,divining a well,taming an unruly river,divining a hot spring,healing the sick,giving the bling sight,the crippled abillity to walk,and so on. These stories are based on the fact that he never tired of putting the profound ideas of his religion into practice to bring happiness to people.
After his passing away in 835,those who believed in his nyujo or netering into aa plane of meditation,began to make the rounds of his memorial places in Shikoku. This is considered to be the origin of the Shikoku Pilgrimage. Even today formal pilgrims will start from Koyasan,and after making the circuit of 88 temples,will return to Koyasan via Temple No.1,just asthe first disciples of Kobo Daishi did long ago.
In 921 the man who called himself Priest Kukai was posthumously canonized Kobo Daishi. "Daishi"means"Great Saint",a title bestowed by the Imperial Court uppon Buddhist priests of the highest virtue.
"Kobo"means"to spread widely the Teachings."
There are 23 saints who have been conferred the title of Daishi. But as a popular saying goes:"Kobo made off with the title of Daishi." Thet is, when one speaks of the Daishi there is no question whom one means. Yet in Shikoku pepole often call this saint of saints"0\Daishi-san"as if he were one of their neighbors,revealing their affectionate love of him and their belief that he is still here.
Usually the pilgrimage is made clockwise. But some people deliberately make a counterclockwise circuit as Emon Saburo did until he finally succeeded in meeting the Daishi. The number 88 represents the number of evil passions identified by Buddhist doctrine,and ideally it is believed that one can get rid of all evil passions by visiting each of the 88 temples. In that sense,visiting even one temple is better than none.
Temple No.1 is where pilgrim's are given the Buddhist Ten Commandments to follow at least during the Pilgrimage:Do not steal. Do not commit adultery. Do not tell a lie. Do not use flowery language. Do not speak ill of others. Do not be angry. Do not be perverse.
Some temples are comparatively accessible. But many of them are located in or atop mountains or in remotevillages,as Kukai chose such places for his ascetic practices. Until only about 20 years ago, some temples were really hard to reach,though nowadays newly-built roads and ropeways have made them less forbidding.
The most authentic pilgrims go on food all the way,spending about two months, because walking is closest to follwing in the Daishi's footsteps. Some young people go by bicycle or motorbike. Some family groups drive their cars,while others hire a taxi. Still others ride the nearest trains,buses and ropeways to the temples on their own(20 days or more are required). Nowadays many people like to join the conducted bus tours(12 days;about \170.000including 3 maels a day). Reservations are necessary.