Part 4: Yamadera and the Hayama Cult

There has been in Yamagata from ancient times a cult involving low mountains in the foothills of taller ranges. Such mountains, which are of a pleasing shape and generally close to settlements are called 'hayama'. People living nearby have a strong feeling of connection with them.

At whatever period of history we consider, death is the greatest suffering that human beings experience and it is a concern all share. In the past, people who lived near a hayama mountain would bury their dead at its foot. They believed that as the body decayed, the spirit became released and ascended the beautiful mountain, and from its summit would watch over its children and their families below. Mt Hoju, the site of Yamadera Risshakuji, is such a mountain.

During the last decade of the eighth century, the native inhabitants of Northern Japan, the Ezo/Ainu, were subjugated by the general Sakanoue no Tamuramaro, and placed under the rule of the Yamato Court. Many Ezo were killed. Fearing the anger of the spirits of the dead, the court ordered the Tendai priest Ennin (794-864) to the area to perform Buddhist rites to pacify unquiet spirits and other rituals to quell the uprisings there and bring the people under Yamato rule.

Ennin established Yamadera as the center of Tendai Buddhistm in the north, choosing the site both because of its topography and its connection with the ancient hayama cult. For ages past people had venerated the mountain as a sacred site where the spirits few all the dead from the area gathered. Ennin must have been well aware of the spiritual power of the places, with its fantastic rock formations. He is thought to have gone first to the large crag in the middle reaches of the mountain called Ko-no-Iwa (Incense Rock), where he solemnly offered incense to the spirits of the Ezo dead. With this he established Risshakuji ('Temple of the Standing Rock') and brought Buddhism to the area.

After entering the temple from the main road, the first building approached is the Konpon-Chudo, the main hall of the complex. Here an eternal flame brought originally from Enryakuji on Mt. Hiei in Kyoto (the founding Tendai temple in Japan) has been burning for well over a thousand years. The main image (Honzon) is Yakushi-Nyorai (Medicine Buddha), the same as Enryakuji. Yakushi was especially venerated in the 8th and 9th centuries among ordinary people as a divinity who could release them from their suffering. To the left of the Konponin-Chudo is the Jogyo Nenbutsu-do, associated with Tendai religious practice. Further along is the main gate of the temple with the words 'Grotto of Souls of the North' written on a wooden board over the entrance. Here from a long flight of stone steps ascends to the Inner Precinct. On the way the visitor passes the Ubado ('Old Womans Hall') and the Semizuka (A mound where a scroll containing Basho's famous poem about the cicadas of Yamadera is buried), and above is a vertical stone wall known as Midahora (Amida's Cave). Its walls are full of funerary inscriptions, and here the visitor has a strong sense of being in the presence of the spirits of the dead. Cliffs line the mountain path, and inscriptions of the posthumous Buddhist names of the dead are to be found everywhere. Small stone Buddhist statues and gravestones jostle together along the path as it continues to wind upwards.

In the inner precinct are the Nyohodo, with the Daibutsuden inside it. The Nyohodo enshrines statues of Shakamuni, the historical Buddha, and the Buddha of the Jewelled Tower. Inside the Daibutsuden is a five meter tall sitting statue of Amida Nyorai, the Buddha of the Western Pure Land. Inside the halls in the inner precinct are votive paintings called 'mukasari ema' which have been offered by parents of children who died young.

Near the inner precinct is a large standing rock dedicated to Amida, and it is surrounded by countless wooden grave markers (sotoba). Even today local people deposit the teeth of the dead here; these are collected together once a year and buried behind the large rock.

During his journey through the 'deep north' the Haiku power Matsuo Basho visited Yamadera, and, struck by the spiritual atmosphere of the place, wrote the poem:

"In the quietness, the cicadas' voices penetrate the rocks" (Shizukesa ya, iwa ni shimi iru, semi no koe)

The cicadas voices may be thought of as the voices of the spirits of the dead permeating the cliffs and crags.

Though Yamadera is a venerable Tendai temple, its enshrined Buddhas, Yakushi and Shakamuni, do not have a strong presence. Rather, the light of Amida, who brings the dead to salvation, and the spirits of the dead pervade the whole mountain. This is a place where, for untold centuries, local beliefs say that the spirits of the dead have ascended. Even today, with Buddhist teachings at the fore, the idea of veneration of the dead runs strongly in the veins of the people of Tohoku. Yamadera remains a place of calm and quiet where the dead continue to be memorialised.

— ubasoku  |  the three mountains of dewa and the spirit of yamagata: 

                                                A look into the ancient faith of which Shugendo is an expression.

Yamadera cliff-face where the bones of the dead lay