Part 3: Mt. Yudono: A Sacred Site of Ancient Beliefs.

Dotted around Yamagata are many stone stele inscribed with the name 'Yudonosan' (Mt. Yudono). According to the official history of the city they number 291, far more than any other inscribed stone. This tells us how strong the faith of the people of the region in Mt. Yudono was.

Mt. Yudono was both the most sacred of the Three Mountains of Dewa (Dewa-Sanzan) and a place tha tpeople were not supposed to talk about. Its faith spread, not only in Yamagata, but throughout all northern apan, and stretched well into the south of what is now Niigata prefecture and into the northern Kanto region (Chiba, Saitama etc). During the Edo period (1600-1867) more than 150,000 people would visit it in those years associated with the cow, which was sacred to Mt. Yudono.

Its appeal is closely related to a deep vein of spirituality among the people. At the foundations of this spirituality are two elements: a veneration of nature and a veneration of the spirits of the dead, particularly of those in one's family line. From ancient times the former has been symbolized by faith in the kami (native deities) and the latter by faith in the divinities of Buddhism, and this continues to the present time. Mt. Haguro, another of the three sacred mountains of Dewa, was formerly the site of a combinatory faith that incorporated both Kami and Buddhas. A the time of the Meiji restoration, however, when such combinatory forms were forbidden by government decree, the cult of the mountain become divided between Dewa-Sanzan Shrine (the former shrine-complex of the mountain), where the Kami alone are revered, and a few Buddhist temples such as Kotakuji Shozen-in at the foot of Mt. Haguro, where the former combinatory traditions are retained.

However, at Mt. Yudono the situation is different. On the surface it seems to be a Shinto shrine, but within, the Kami and Buddhas mingle and co-exist. The abode of the deity of the shrine (goshintai) is considered to be a large rust-coloured boulder, from the top of which a spring of hot water flows. From the most ancient times the people here have been in awe of natural phenomena, revering them as deities. The most representative of these phenomena are mountains, with rocks in particular considered to be the concentration of the essence of mountains. Thus rock formations themselves were worshiped as Kami. And so the rock at Mt Yudono can, like the sacred mountain of Mt. Miwa in Nara prefecture (the Kami of Omiwa Shrine), be called iwakura; the rock where the Kami descends.

The 'Buddhas' of Mt. Yudono are found to the left of the sacred rock in a small cavern-like shrine venerating ancestral spirits and on a cliff face down which water drips. The name of the dead person is written on a small rectangle of wood, which is offered at the shrine together with a stick on which multi coloured zig-zag strips of paper are attached (called a bonten). People also stick thin sheets of appear cut in the shape of a human figure onto the wet cliff face, as a purificatory offering. This is a place where the ancestral spirits, who are now considered to be Buddhas, come into spiritual contact with those who perform the offerings.

Mt. Yudono is a rare example of a place where both aspects of ancient beliefs - nature veneration and reverence for the dead- remain as a living faith. Perhaps it is not too much to say it is a mecca of primitive religion.

As Yamagata moves from being a center of science and technology into a new age of spiritual culture, we must look again at the ancient beliefs that flow within the hearts of the people here to create a new philosophy and values system.

— ubasoku |  dewa shugen and the spirit of yamagata

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

Ritual of removing kegare

Mt. Yudono

Kotakuji-Shozen-in, Mt. Haguro:

Heartland of Haguro Shugendo