652 



The National Geographic Magazine 



The Images of Jezo, Benten, and Fudo 

 To throw water over them benefits the souls of ancestors (see page 663) 



walk, and are hauled by ropes up the 

 steep paths, with zealous children sup- 

 porting them, lifting and placing their 

 feet for them, since real merit cannot be 

 acquired if one does not make the ascent 

 on foot. 



EVERY GREAT JAPANESE FAMILY HAS A 

 MONUMENT AT KOYASAN 



Every great family in the Empire has 

 a monument or cluster of tombstones at 

 Koyasan ; the humblest may freely go 

 and cast a fragment of a creinated body 

 into the well in the Hall of Bones beside 

 Kobo Daishi's tomb ; and ihais or mortu- 

 ary tablets are deposited by thousands in 

 the temples and monasteries on the moun- 

 tain summit, where there are morning 

 and evening services in honor of these 

 dead souls. The poorest go in pilgrimage 

 with staff and bell, carrying a bit of in- 

 cinerated bone to cast into the deep pit or 

 ossuary, and the greatest repair there 

 with all the state and trappings of luxu- 



rious woe to inter precious ashes or cele- 

 brate death anniversaries with splendid 

 service. 



A nobler setting or more splendid sur- 

 roundings could not have been chosen for 

 the group of temples that grew with the 

 centuries in the midst of this forest prim- 

 eval, for the Koya Maki, the species of 

 evergreen cryptomeria peculiar to this 

 mountain, lifts a rough reddish trunk 

 high in air before branching, and its 

 needle foliage is bunched in dark, blue- 

 green masses that form dense canopies 

 of shade. The vast cathedral aisles of 

 Koyasan are rivaled only by the ma- 

 jestic avenues and Druidic groves of 

 cryptomeria at Nikko. A great fire in 

 1844 destroyed the noble five-storied pa- 

 goda, the Kondo, or main hall. In 

 1888 a second great fire raged for two 

 days and swept away priests' houses and 

 small structures by the acre. In spite of 

 such disasters, Koyasan still possesses 

 many unique and splendid structures and 



