Yama no be no michi

It is hard to think of Japan as different from today's mixture of post-Meiji, 21st century technology and traditions of the Edo-jidai - that period of Tokugawa shogunate that was marked by all those things as we value as traditionally Japanese: kabuki, geiko, the tea ceremony, Zen... But there once was a Japan not only without keitai and pachinko joints, but also without Buddhism. And although the Buddha and the native Shinto gods get along quite well today, one cannot think that the old kami sometimes miss the good old days when the country was more wild, raw, unrefined, and when they were undisputably in charge. It is a time that I know very little about. An era to me yet completely unexplored.

A couple of weeks ago we hiked in Nara prefecture, one valley over from Osaka and the Inland Sea. This area is the cradle of Japanese civilization and home to its oldest recorded history.

We set off from Kyoto as early as we could to make the best of the short daylight hours, and hiked in beautiful crisp winter air and we hiked the Yama-no-be-no-michi, a path in the foothills of the mountains of Nara-ken, going from one historical site to another and in the process mixing historical periods willy-nilly. So here is a collage of impressions.

The Yama-no-be-no-michi path. Here traversing a shallow river valley

A roadside tanuki-san

Sunny, crisp winter day

The kofun (burial mound) of Emperor Suijin

Suijin's kofun. Kofun became fashionable in the 3rd century AD and slowly lost in popularity after the arrival of Buddhism (which favours cremation over internment) around the 7th century. The largest kofun rival in volume of material the Pyramids of Giza and took armies of workers to build and years to complete. They speak to the power of the ancient rulers of this area. Click here to check out the kofun of Emperor Nintoku in modern-day Osaka. 400m long and surrounded by a double moat. Nothing if not impressive.

The kofun are the graves of the direct ancestors of today's Emperor and as such are still highly revered today

Back to Buddhist "modernity": Chogakuji temple

A bloody footprint from a long-ago violent death. Once, the boards were a floor but now they are preserved as part of the ceiling.

A shrine's gate near the end of the hike.

Yama no be no michi

It is hard to think of Japan as different from today's mixture of post-Meiji, 21st century technology and traditions of the Edo-jidai - that period of Tokugawa shogunate that was marked by all those things as we value as traditionally Japanese: kabuki, geiko, the tea ceremony, Zen... But there once was a Japan not only without keitai and pachinko joints, but also without Buddhism. And although the Buddha and the native Shinto gods get along quite well today, one cannot think that the old kami sometimes miss the good old days when the country was more wild, raw, unrefined, and when they were undisputably in charge. It is a time that I know very little about. An era to me yet completely unexplored.

A couple of weeks ago we hiked in Nara prefecture, one valley over from Osaka and the Inland Sea. This area is the cradle of Japanese civilization and home to its oldest recorded history.

We set off from Kyoto as early as we could to make the best of the short daylight hours, and hiked in beautiful crisp winter air and we hiked the Yama-no-be-no-michi, a path in the foothills of the mountains of Nara-ken, going from one historical site to another and in the process mixing historical periods willy-nilly. So here is a collage of impressions.

The Yama-no-be-no-michi path. Here traversing a shallow river valley

A roadside tanuki-san

Sunny, crisp winter day

The kofun (burial mound) of Emperor Suijin

Suijin's kofun. Kofun became fashionable in the 3rd century AD and slowly lost in popularity after the arrival of Buddhism (which favours cremation over internment) around the 7th century. The largest kofun rival in volume of material the Pyramids of Giza and took armies of workers to build and years to complete. They speak to the power of the ancient rulers of this area. Click here to check out the kofun of Emperor Nintoku in modern-day Osaka. 400m long and surrounded by a double moat. Nothing if not impressive.

The kofun are the graves of the direct ancestors of today's Emperor and as such are still highly revered today

Back to Buddhist "modernity": Chogakuji temple

A bloody footprint from a long-ago violent death. Once, the boards were a floor but now they are preserved as part of the ceiling.

A shrine's gate near the end of the hike.