Japan in Motion---Pro-web casting from across Japan.

Yamadera

Yamadera, meaning ‘mountain temple,’ is the popular name of a wonderful Buddhist temple complex in Yamagata prefecture. The great Tendai priest Ennin founded the temple in 860 A.D., and its real name is Ryushaku-ji.
Scattered across the mountainside, the complex includes forty buildings between Konpon Chudo, the temple’s main hall, and Okuno-in at the very top. In order to see them all, you’ll need to climb 1100 stone steps, but it’s not as hard as it sounds and shouldn’t take more than an hour at most.

Highlights include a flame in Konpon Chudo that was carried here from Kyoto more than a thousand years ago and has been kept alive ever since. Nearby you’ll also find a statue of Matsuo Basho, who stopped here during his celebrated journey through Tohoku and wrote the following:
Silence.
The cicada’s cry
Pierces the stone.

It’s not quite as silent today, though the cicadas are still singing and the temple continues to thrive. Take your time and enjoy the walk up the mountainside, with its incense-scented halls, carved prayers, caves and weathered statues. As you climb, you’ll come across fantastic views of the charming valley below, especially from the famous Godai-do near the top. In one place, a path to a couple of small temples has been deemed too dangerous for anyone but the Yamabushi and is closed to the public, but the rest of the complex is yours to explore.

■Matsuo Basho
Matsuo Basho is universally regarded as one of the great masters of the haiku. Simultaneously an innovator and traditionalist, he took a form of poetry that had existed for centuries and, without violating its structure, refined its voice until it was virtually a new mode of expression.

Born Matsuo Kinsaku, probably of a low-ranking samurai family, Basho had the good fortune at an early age to find service with a lord who was also a great lover of poetry. When this master died in 1666, Basho made the decision to relinquish his samurai status and after a brief sojourn in Kyoto, moved to Edo, where he quickly gained a name as both a poet and critic. This is also where he took his final haigo, or pen name, after the Basho-an (Plantain tree hut) that was built for him by his students.
It’s often said that Basho used poetry to express Zen, but it’s probably more the case that he studied Zen to refine his poetry. The integrity of the poem always came first. His poetry became infused with the spirit of sabi, a love of the old, worn and unnoticed, while the language was characterized by simple, straightforward description, frequently contrasting two objects. A haiku written in 1679 is widely regarded as something of a turning point, marking a break with much of what he had written before and displaying the characteristics mentioned above.

On a withered branch,
A crow has alighted.
Nightfall in autumn.

During the course of his life, Basho made several journeys across Japan. It was during a trip to Hiraizumi in 1689 that he made the notes for what would become his masterpiece, Oku no hosomichi, or The Narrow Road to the Deep North. After three years of polishing the work, he published it in 1694, shortly before his death.
Basho had enjoyed a wide circle of students and admirers in life, and after his death he became tremendously famous, with his work combed over obsessively by following generations of poets. Although the fortunes of haiku have waxed and waned in the three centuries since his death, and Basho himself has not entirely escaped criticism, he is still regarded today as one of the greatest chroniclers of Japan, and certainly one of its finest poets.

>>Access
JR Yamagata Station ====(30 min. by car)=====Yamadera
JR Yamagata Station ====(20 min. by train)====Yamadera

>>Open Hours
-Yamadera Risshkuji Temple
8:00 - 18:00

>>Fee
Adult and High school student: 300 yen
Junior high school student: 200 yen
Child: 100 yen

-Matt Mangham