Chapter Tozan, January 2011

The full name of the head temple Taiseki-ji is:

多宝たほ富士ふじ大だい日蓮華山にちれんげざん大石寺たいせきじ

pronounced

Tahō many treasures fuji Fuji Dai great nichi sun renge lotus -zan temple Tai great seki rock -jitemple

As explained on the head temple's website, the Taiseki-ji part ("great rock temple") is derived from an earlier name for the land on which the temple grounds were established. That name is O-ishigahara (大おお石いしヶが原はら in Japanese) which means "big stone field". The Tahō "many treasures" refers to the treasures of the faith brought there by Nikko Shonin in the year 1290, and fuji refers to the mountain.

The kanji 山, here pronounced "-zan", is used in compound forms to mean "temple" (for example, 開かい山ざん kaizan "founding a temple"). But in many other situations, such as the name of Mount Fuji (富ふ士じ山さん Fuji-san), or when it appears alone, 山 means mountain.

By analogy, a pilgrimage to the head temple is called tozan (登と山ざん) which literally means "climbing" or "mountaineering" (put "登山" into Google Image Search and see what I mean!).

The proximity of Taiseki-ji to Mount Fuji (the highest point in Japan, and the world's most frequently climbed mountain peak¹), combined with the fact that other sects of Buddhism consider an ascent of the mountain to be a religious pilgrimage², can make this linguistic ambiguity particularly confusing³.

Contents

Flight to Japan

Hotel

Bus ride to Taiseki-ji

Arrive at lodging temple

First Gokaihi

Through the Demon Gate (Onimon)

After visiting Mutsubo

Monday morning

After 2nd Gokaihi

Memorials and Cemetery

Five Storied Pagoda

Hoshoen Garden

Monday dinner and Tuesday morning

Trip to nearby shop

Tuesday Gokaihi

Mieido restoration exhibit

Tuesday afternoon before leaving

Return bus trip

Rest stop

Through Tokyo at night

Narita mall (AEON) and trip home

Flight to Japan

(Click on any image to view a larger version.)

Note ice on pavement below planes. The service trucks slipped on this ice, preventing our plane from being "pushed back" from the terminal, and causing an 80-minute delay in departure.