{"id":101469,"date":"2024-03-15T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-15T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/voyapon.com\/?p=101469"},"modified":"2024-03-26T18:16:18","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T09:16:18","slug":"footsteps-edo-pilgrims-mount-oyama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voyapon.com\/footsteps-edo-pilgrims-mount-oyama\/","title":{"rendered":"Walking in the Footsteps of Edo Period Pilgrims on Mount Oyama"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The sight of Mount Oyama\u2019s pyramid-shaped silhouette<\/strong>, at an altitude of 1,252 meters, is hard to miss in the Kanagawa area. The hike to the summit has been on my bucket list for quite some time, not least for its famous Oyama Afuri Shrine and the fact that it\u2019s less than two hours away from Tokyo by train. What I didn\u2019t know, was that this mountain has been considered sacred since the Jomon period (some 5,000 years ago) and was an extremely popular pilgrimage site during the Edo period<\/strong>. As it was believed that Mount Oyama could stop the rain, people came here to pray for abundant harvests or for prosperity in business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the 18th and 19th centuries, \u201cup to 200,000 worshippers made their way up to Mount Oyama each year\u201d on a four-day journey from Akasaka in Tokyo along the current National Highway 246, explains Meguro-san, a gonnegi<\/em> (Shinto priest) whose family has been based at Oyama Afuri Shrine for 250 years. \u201cThey represented one-fifth of the capital\u2019s population!\u201d Edo merchants formed religious organizations called kou<\/em> (\u8b1b) and pooled their resources to send a representative of their organization to Mount Oyama every summer. It\u2019s a tradition that surprisingly still exists today<\/strong>, albeit on a much smaller scale. Accompanied by Meguro-san, we attempt to relive the experience of these Edo period pilgrims, step by step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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