Yamagata Archives - Viki Pandit

Yamadera (山寺) is a scenic temple located in the mountains northeast of Yamagata City.

This journal is mostly about my Fall experience in Yamadera (山寺), a scenic temple located in the mountains northeast of Yamagata City When autumn deepens and the leaves begin to change color in the the fall months, hunting for autumn foliage has become a popular pastime in Japan Watching my friends post the mesmerizing beauty of Autumn forced me to also schedule my tour to Japan during this time of the year Mind you, this need to visit far off places to appreciate the beauty of autumn has been a custom since ancient time as depicted in “The Tale of the Genji” Even in the eighth century we have scenes that

Scattered throughout Yamagata Prefecture, there are over two dozen mummified Japanese monks known as Sokushinbutsu. The process of self-mummification was mainly practiced by monks in Northern Japan between the 11th and 19th century. Today we walk down to the Buddhist mummy of Nangakuji Temple in Tsuruoka that holds the remains of Tetsuryou-kai, mummified at the age of 44, in a meditating pose, to understand what drove these monks towards this self inflicted, painful death.

From the beautiful prefecture of Akita, we were headed to Niigata Unfortunately there are no Shinkansen lines along this route, so we caught a local JR train along the Uetsu Line to Sakata From Sakata we changed to another train on the Inaho line towards Niigata The Inaho line passes through endless paddy fields During summer, the lush green fields are a treat to the eyes On the way we had planned to take a break at Tsuruoka in Yamagata Prefecture to visit the Nangaku temple The Nangaku Temple houses the mummy of Tetsuryukai’s, who

Yamagata

Fall leaves at Yamadera Temple

The Nangaku-ji Temple

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