In the story of the Daisen faith, we touched on the people who worshipped the mountain itself, and on the bustle at its temple gate. This time, the story is about the road leading toward that Mt. Daisen.
The road from Mizoguchi, leading to Mt. Daisen
The roads used for making the Daisen pilgrimage are collectively called the Daisen-michi (the Daisen pilgrimage roads). Several of them stretched out from all directions, and the one passing through Hōki Town was the Mizoguchi road (Mizoguchi-michi). Starting from Mizoguchi-juku on the Izumo Kaidō, it headed toward Daisen-ji, and around Masumizu it merged into the Yokote road.
In other words, Hōki Town was one of the gateways for the Daisen pilgrimage.
It wasn’t only worshippers who traveled it
What makes this road interesting is that it was a road of faith and, at the same time, a road of commerce.
In front of the gate of Daisen-ji, a cattle and horse market was once held. And it was the largest in Japan. The bakurō (livestock dealers) who led their cattle and horses gathered at Mt. Daisen by way of this Mizoguchi road. As “the largest cattle and horse market in Japan, nurtured by the Jizō faith,” it has even become a component cultural property of Japan Heritage.
Prayers to Jizō, and the trade in cattle. The sacred and the raw reality of daily life existed together on a single road. This is the depth of the Daisen-michi.
Tracing it along today’s roads
The roads of those days have not survived exactly as they were, but you can walk or run while tracing the route. Just looking up at Mt. Daisen from the town center of Mizoguchi and thinking, “So this is where the cattle climbed up,” makes the scenery feel a little different.
- The town of Mizoguchi — The starting point of the Daisen-michi. It was also a post town on the Izumo Kaidō
- Daisen-ji and Ōgamiyama Shrine Okumiya — The road’s final destination. For details, see the story of the Daisen faith
As a model course, you could even put together a day of tracing the Mizoguchi road along modern roads.
A word from the rabbit: They say the cattle plodded along right next to the line of worshippers. Just imagining it, it sounds kind of lively and nice.
References:
- Japan Heritage Daisen, “The Daisen-michi (the Mizoguchi road)”
- *The route, the cattle and horse market, and the Japan Heritage component cultural property are all historical facts based on publicly available materials
