on the right (see foldout map). Tickets must be purchased at the window. Again, you should try to confirm the time of your train’s arrival and the destination of the train you board.
In a direct service begun in 1989, some Seibu trains (not the Red Arrow) from Ikebukuro split at Yokoze Station, with the front cars heading toward Mitsumine-guchi on the Chichibu line, and the rear cars heading toward Nagatoro. For the return trip, they join at Yokoze before departing for Ikebukuro. This service is quite infrequent, however.
For access to Higashi Chichibu-mura in the eastern part of Chichibu county, the Tōbu Tōjō line is recommended. Tōbu trains leave from the opposite end of Ikebukuro Station as Seibu trains do and go to Yorii via Kawagoe and Ogawa-machi. Take the express leaving from track one, get off at Ogawa-machi and take a bus to Higashi Chichibu-mura (see p. 116). There is no super-express service or reserved seating on this line. Nor is there any surcharge.
Buses run along several main routes in and around Chichibu, departing from major train stations. Though somewhat infrequent, they are useful for reaching, inexpensively, destinations beyond railway lines. They can also save much time spent walking on rural roads. Bus schedules, posted at each stop, usually list times for weekdays and Saturdays on the left, Sundays and holidays on the right. Bus fares in rural areas, unlike city buses, vary with distance. When you board, take a ticket from the machine just inside the door. The number on this ticket indicates where you boarded; your fare can be read under the appropriate number on the chart above the driver. If you boarded the bus at the terminus, you will not get a ticket; simply pay the highest fare indicated when you get off. It is a good idea to tell the driver your destination when you board; also, listen for the announcement of your stop.
Taxis are available from major train stations and may be called if you wished to be picked up at other destinations. Knowing the name or number of the temple you are at in Japanese or the name of a prominent landmark nearby is the best way to make your location known. The dispatcher may ask for your name; you should state it in as brief a manner as possible, or, if there are no other foreigners about, say gaijin desu (I’m a foreigner). There is usually a small surcharge for pickup service. Taxi companies also operate temple tours for flat rates. These are convenient for those who do not relish the long walks, and are reasonably economical for small groups.
Complete three-day, two-night tours covering the entire pilgrimage are also offered by Toei Kankō Bus Tours four times a year: in April, June, October, and November. For further information, visit their office in the Kōtsū Kaikan building east of Yurakuchō Station in Tokyo, or call (in Japanese) 216-2068 or 216-2091.
Bicycles, convenient for the temples and sights in town, may also be rented. One shop is located ahead and to the right of Chichibu Station as you exit, just past a handicrafts shop. Another shop is located in Nagatoro (see p. 143).
For those who speak no Japanese, a Finding List is provided listing all temples, shrines, shops, restaurants, museums, and bus and railroad stops mentioned in the text, in romanized Japanese and Japanese characters. Use this list to confirm destinations or request assistance if lost.
PART ONE
PILGRIMAGE
THE THIRTY-FOUR KANNON TEMPLES
No Buddhist deity in Japan has inspired such a wealth of artistic creation, religious tradition, and folk custom and belief as has Kannon (Kuan-yin in Chinese; Avalokiteshvara in Sanskrit). The name is often translated Goddess of Mercy, but the deity may assume male or female form. In the Buddhist pantheon, Kannon is a bodhisattva (in Japanese, bosatsu), an enlightened being who has foregone Nirvana in order to remain on earth and help those who are suffering. The personification of infinite compassion, this bodhisattva will render aid to all who invoke the name Kannon, which literally means “hearer of cries.”
People have always adored, rather than revered, Kannon. When Japanese call on Kannon-sama (adding the honorific form of address), they feel a certain peace of mind. The image they associate with the deity may vary from an exquisite statue designated a National Treasure to a weathered bas-relief in a country lane. Worship may not be on a regular basis, and the worshiper’s exhortations may be for entirely selfish ends. However, it is understood that the Kannon’s compassion for human weakness and capacity to relieve suffering are infinite, and available to all who seek them.
To gain the help of the deity, a prayer while chanting the name Kannon will suffice. This simple form of Kannon worship spread rapidly after Buddhism reached Japan in the sixth century and was assimilated into the culture of the country. A pilgrimage is a more elaborate traditional form of Kannon worship. It began as a religious discipline of dedicated monks. Later, some emperors and nobles, weary of political strife and the strain that life imposed upon them, went on pilgrimages to seek spiritual fulfillment. Eventually, the journey became an end in itself—a quest for physical and mental well-being—and this had a synergistic effect in promoting the popularity of Kannon.
The first pilgrimage course was begun in western Japan by grouping together the famous Kannon temples of Hase-dera in Nara, Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto, and Ishiyama-dera near Lake Biwa. Incorporating the worship places of ascetic monks in Kumano in southern Wakayama Prefecture, a course linking thirty-three temples was laid out around the twelfth century. The number thirty-three is significant because the sutras teach that Kannon can appear in thirty-three different forms. It was a long hazardous journey, and followers at this early stage would have been limited to certain privileged worshipers. Called the Saigoku sanjū-san reijō (Saigoku pilgrimage to thirty-three holy sites), it gradually began to attract public attention and flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Today, it is held in high regard for the spiritual perseverance required to complete the trek. Spread over seven prefectures, beginning in Kumano and ending in Gifu, it takes almost ten days by car, or three to four weeks on foot and by car.
Soon after the foundation of the Kamakura shogunate in 1192, the course of a second pilgrimage was organized in the Kantō region. Its creation may have been supported by the third shogun, Sanetomo, who inherited his dedication to Kannon from his father Yoritomo, the founder of the shogunate. Beginning in Kamakura, the route winds about the Kantō plain and ends at the southern tip of Chiba, where Yoritomo had spent his youth in exile. The Asakusa Kannon temple in Tokyo is the thirteenth temple on this course. Called the Bandō sanjū-san reijō, (Bandō pilgrimage to thirty-three holy sites), after the old name of Kantō, the route was reasonably well known, but problems of access and geographical sequence prevented it from becoming as widely popular as the first course.
Nevertheless, the popularity of these pilgrimages led to the creation of miniature courses in many parts of the country. Farmers, who accounted for the vast majority of the population and who had time to spare in the off-season, became particularly enthusiastic pilgrims. Their participation contributed to the rapid growth of the pilgrimage courses; more than two hundred were created by the end of the Edo period in the mid-nineteenth century. Of these, the Chichibu course had natural advantages: it was close to Edo, the capital and main population center, and there was no checkpoint between the two places. In the eighteenth century, the Chichibu pilgrimage affirmed its importance by adding one more temple to its course, establishing a one-hundred-temple Kannon pilgrimage in the combined three large courses, the number conveying an image of perfection and completeness.
According to archives dating from the eighteenth century, the village of Tochiya in Chichibu, site of the first temple of the course, received 40,667 pilgrims between New Year’s and March 21 of 1750. The village of Shiroku, near Temple 30, accommodated 52,881 in the same period. Given the total population of 17,000, according to a 1786 census, in all sixteen villages of the Chichibu basin, the number of pilgrims
