Dead to the World

Abstract

According to a popular Japanese saying the island of Shikoku, the fourth largest in the Japanese archipelago and the setting for Japan’s best-known pilgrimage route — which takes the pilgrim on a 900 mile circuit of 88 Buddhist temples around the island — comes alive in spring with the sound of pilgrims’ bells. At this time the courtyards of the Shikoku temples are thronged with crowds of white-robed pilgrims, bells hanging from their shirts or pilgrims’ staffs, chanting prayers in unison, lighting candles and incense, tossing coins noisily into offertory boxes, jostling each other to get the pilgrimage scrolls and books they carry stamped at the temple office, and buying religious amulets and souvenirs from the numerous stalls at the sites. Though spring has always been the main season for pilgrims — in pre-modern times this was the period in the agricultural cycle and in climatic terms when it was most convenient to travel — the changing economic structure of modem society and the development of high-class facilities and modes of transport for pilgrims have made the pilgrimage feasible at any time of year, and have transformed autumn into a second peak period. Nonetheless, the three months of March, April and May continue to account for around 45 per cent of all pilgrims (Satō 1990: 41–6).