In 2011, after completing one of
the longest and most unusual journeys of my life, I found myself in Mexico
City. The journey from Tokyo, via Krasnoyarsk, Frankfurt, and Chicago,
travelling by cargo plane took several days (see here). A journey which now
means I have the unique distinction of having two entry stamps in my passport –
for Chicago and Mexico City – both issued on the same day! … Undoubtedly
though, one of the real highlights of this epic voyage across the northern
hemisphere was witnessing the spectacular view from the cockpit as the plane
descended through the mountains surrounding Mexico City on a moonlit night as
we came into land.
I was in Mexico City leading a team
installing an exhibition at the National Anthropology Museum; which in itself was
a real dream come true for me in many ways because when I was younger I had
been deeply fascinated by the great Pre-Columbian civilisations of the
Americas. For my twelfth birthday I’d been given a subscription to the National Geographic Magazine and for
several years thereafter, each month when a new edition arrived, I would avidly
scour the pages of each issue looking for any news of the on-going
archaeological excavations taking place in various parts of Mexico and also
Peru – the Maya and the Incas being of foremost interest to me. Hence, now that
I was finally in Mexico, seeing with my own eyes the jade burial suit of Pacal,
ruler of the Mayan city of Palenque, found in 1949 inside his undisturbed tomb
deep within the Temple of Inscriptions, lying beneath an enormous ornately
carved stone sarcophagus lid, was one of many highlights. Another was a day’s
visit to the ancient city of Teotihuacan.
Jade Death Mask of Pacal from Palenque
The National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City
The rise and fall of the vast monumental
city of Teotihuacan was near enough contemporary with the height of Imperial
Rome. The antiquity of the site is attested to in its very name – Teotihuacan is an Aztec word meaning “the place where men became gods.” Even
to the Aztecs this was a much fabled and mysterious place of much older ruins –
much as Stonehenge in Britain would have been to the conquering Romans. There
are no inscriptions or written records relating to the site of Teotihuacan, all
that we know about it and the people who built it and lived there is derived
from modern archaeological excavations. Its deep cultural influence though is
clear throughout the many different cultures which came after it across the entire
region, from the Toltecs to the Maya and the Aztecs – peoples who similarly
built vast ceremonial cities with giant step pyramids as the focal points of
their religious beliefs and their famously bloody practices of human sacrifice.
The Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan
At its height Teotihuacan is
thought to have had a population somewhere between 80,000-200,000 people,
occupying an area of some 23 square kilometres. The central ceremonial site
itself occupies a vast space of around four square kilometres. The great stone
pyramids and temple complexes arranged along a wide two kilometre long
ceremonial avenue are today enormous dark stone edifices – faded monuments to a
more colourful past. Originally these pyramids would have been faced with white
plaster and painted with brightly coloured murals, some of which have been
preserved in parts of the site and are still visible today. How the culture of
Teotihuacan met its eventual demise – either through war or famine or some
other natural disaster – remains an open question.
The two main pyramids which
dominate the ruined city are thought to have been dedicated to the Sun and the
Moon. The Pyramid of the Sun being the larger of the two. These are the ones
which everyone who visits Teotihuacan climbs to take in the panorama and
thereby gauge the immense grandeur of the site. When I visited it was only
possible to climb to the first platform of the Pyramid of the Moon, but it’s a
point of pride for everyone who visits to make it to the top of the massive
Pyramid of the Sun – no mean feat when done in the burning windless heat of the
sun given that there is next to no shade at any point during your ascent. That
said though, the climb is more than worth the effort because the view from the
top, some 70 metres from the ground, is astounding.
The pyramid’s footprint is almost
exactly the same size as that of the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt, but,
given its stepped nature and the angle of its sides, it is nowhere near as
tall. Again, like the great Egyptian pyramid though, the Pyramid of the Sun is
also accurately aligned, such that on two days of the year (May 19th
and July 25th) the sun is located directly overhead at midday; and
the west facade also faces the point where the sun sets on those two days. The
alignment of the rest of the city is thereby determined by the very precise positioning
of the Pyramid of the Sun. As you stand on the top it is remarkable to think
that the 2.5 million tonnes of stone and earth below your feet from which it is
constructed was done so without the aid of metal tools or wheeled vehicles, or
even proper beasts of burden for that matter. It’s a truly man-made feature of
the landscape.
The Pyramid of the Moon, Teotihuacan
Unlike many of the later Mayan and
Aztec temples which began as small structures which were then successively
overlaid and elaborated with increasingly larger versions until they had
swelled to vast monumental proportions, the Pyramid of the Sun is thought to
have been built in a single phase with perhaps only a very small platform
initially built and now shrouded within its centre. In 1971 archaeologists
discovered a tunnel which lead to a small clover-leaf-shaped cave directly
under the centre of the pyramid. It seems certain that this cave represents
some sort of inner sanctum or ‘holy of holies’ around which the great pyramid
and the entire ceremonial site itself was built. Sadly, although probably very
wisely, this cave is inaccessible to the visiting public. There are many
theories regarding the spiritual significance of this cave. Some of the most
plausible seem to be connected to later Aztec legends associated with the god
Tlaloc, god of the rain and bringer of fertility, as the cave seems to have
originally been the site of an underground spring. Other theories associate the
cave with subterranean creation myths which abound in various local cultures
throughout the region – certainly caves beneath pyramids seem to be a feature
of other later pyramid sites as well, such as those built by the Aztecs.
Obsidian
Having visited Teotihuacan and
stopping at a nearby obsidian factory to see how this extraordinary natural
black volcanic glass has been traditionally worked for centuries (I later
bought an obsidian polished mirror, which you can read about here), it was time
for lunch. The best local place for lunch in the area is undoubtedly La Gruta. Operating since 1906 this is
an open-air restaurant set inside a vast natural cave in an overhanging cliff
of tufa stone. Here, served by immaculate white-coated waiters, you can eat
lots of traditional Mexican food whilst watching dancers performing
Aztec-inspired and traditional Hispanic dances on stage. It’s a great way to
round off your visit to Teotihuacan and a pleasant way to escape from the
fiercely hot sun, relaxing in the subterranean cool of the enormous arched cave
drinking a chilled bottle of cerveza
or several!
In
2009 I was living and studying in Japan. I moved from Tokyo to Osaka for just
over a month in the late summer. One weekend I decided to visit Hiei-zan, or
Mount Hiei, a mountain sacred to Japan’s Tendai Buddhists and the famous
‘Marathon Monks.’ What follows is the travel diary I wrote at the time,
describing my trip:
Saturday
– September 19th 2009
Took an early morning train
from Osaka Station to Hieizan-Sakamoto. Mount Hiei itself sits to the northeast
of Kyoto; rising to an elevation of almost 2,800 feet, it commands an excellent view of nearby
Lake Biwa. From Hieizan-Sakamoto took the ‘Sakamoto Cable’, which is actually a
funicular railway, to the top. The Sakamoto Cable is rather like the Peak Tram
on Hong Kong Island, except the car is somewhat larger and the slope of the
track is much gentler and far less steep. Part way up the car passes a small
cave and it is possible to catch a brief glimpse within of the tiered ranks of
red bibbed Jizo figures carved from stone, all flickering in the light cast
from innumerable candles. Jizo-sama is the bodhisattva (Kṣitigarbha), who is
particularly revered in Japan as the guardian deity who protects deceased
children. Further up, at the midpoint of the Cable’s ascent the single track
splits off into two parallel tracks before reuniting again in a single track.
This is the point at which the two cars, one ascending and the other
descending, pass by one another. From this point upwards, through the gaps in
the trees, it is possible to get some magnificent glimpses of Lake Biwa receding
far below.
Lake Biwa
At the top, emerging from the
Cable terminal building the view is beautiful. Lake Biwa is vast. It is Japan’s
largest lake, and, according to my aged guidebook, it is the second oldest
freshwater lake in the world after Lake Baikal in Siberia, which I think I’ve
seen from airplane windows several times on various flights to and from Asia
over the last few years. Looking out across Lake Biwa, rising out of the misty
haze in the distance, I could see a small black, almost perfectly cone-shaped
mountain which apparently is known as ‘Shiga’s Little Mount Fuji’, the area ahead
of it being Shiga Prefecture. From the Sakamoto Cable stop it was a short
stroll to the first temple – Enryaku-ji, the real reason for venturing up Mount
Hiei.
Riding the Sakamoto Cable
The Sakamoto Cable Terminal Building
Enryaku-ji is not a single
temple building, but rather it is the name given to a collection of temples and
other religious buildings which are all concentrated around three separate
places at the top of the mountain ridge, all nestling amidst the tall ancient
pine trees. Enryaku-ji was founded in 788 AD (during the Heian Era) by a
Buddhist monk named Saicho (767-822), sanctified after his death as Dengyō
Daishi. He built a temple here to house an image of Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha
of Healing, which he had carved from a fallen tree. After studying in China he
returned to Hiei-zan in 805 and founded the Tendai sect of Japanese Buddhism.
Tendai (天台宗), meaning
‘Heavenly Terrace’ or ‘Heavenly Platform’, is a school of Buddhism primarily
founded upon the tenets of the Lotus Sutra, which is held to represent the
ultimate truth of the Buddha; however, Tendai Buddhism also incorporates
certain elements of Japanese Shinto, the native animist religion of Japan,
which focusses belief upon a range of deities, genius loci or elemental spirits of nature, thus making Tendai a
distinctly Japanese line of Buddhist doctrine.
A number of other famous monks
who came after Saicho, who studied at the mountain monastery on Hiei-zan,
eventually went on to modify these original principles and thus found variant
sects of Buddhism, many of which – along with Tendai – are still practiced
today. Among them there was Kobo Daishi (774-835), who founded the Shingon, or
‘True Word’ sect; Hōnen (1133-1212), who founded the Jōdoshū, or ‘Pure Land’
sect, who also coined the nembutsu,
or simple practice of chanting “Nama Amida Butsu” – meaning “Praise to Amida
Buddha.” Shinran (1173-1263) broke away from the Jōdoshū to found the Jōdo
Shinshū, or ‘True Pure Land’ sect in 1224. The monk Nichiren (1222-1282)
founded another sect, which was named Nichiren after him; it has a strict
scholarly doctrine, similarly based around the scripture of the Lotus Sutra, it
deems all other texts and sects as heretical.
In its early days the
monastery of Enryaku-ji received generous Imperial funding, hence Court
officials were sent up the mountain for a twelve year period of study. The Tendai
sect began to expand in size, wealth and political power, eventually owning
vast tracts of land and maintaining its own army of several hundred
well-trained warrior monks. The sect often feuded with rival sects,
particularly with Kōfuku-ji at Nara, but all of this was put to a stop in 1571
by the regional Daimyō, Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), a powerful warlord who sought
to unify Japan by securing control of much of Honshu, the main island of Japan.
He led 30,000 troops up Hiei-zan and raised most of the Enryaku-ji complex. It
was only after Nobunaga’s death that under his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi
(1537-1598), the monks were free to rebuild and properly restore
Enryaku-ji. The sacred traditions, however, have since continued unbroken to
this day, and in 1994 the temple complex was designated by UNESCO a 'World
Cultural Asset.'
Kaidan-in
Hiei-zan is a remarkably
peaceful place, it is wonderfully serene and very tranquil. Approaching the
first part of the temple complex the low soft boom of one of the temple bells
resonated through the tall pine and cedar trees, lending to the stillness of
the high forest that deep sense of the venerably old and sacred, the echo of
traditions continuing in reverberations unchanged by the centuries. The first
building here is the Konpon Chū-dō, or the Central Main Hall, Enryaku-ji’s most
sacred building. This is the hall originally founded by Saicho in 788 as the
Ichijō Shikan-in or the ‘Temple of the Calming Contemplation of the One
Vehicle’, housing the Yakushi Nyorai (literally, the Medicine Teacher, or
Buddha of Healing). The interior of this temple has a deep ambience. The altars
are set in a sunken area behind the worship floor, hidden in an incense-scented
gloom, which is only dimly lit by a range of very antique-looking lamps. These lamps
are oil burning, and, according to tradition, the three large lamps in front of
the main altar have been kept perpetually alight for over 1,200 years, having
originally been lit by Saicho himself. It is not clearly known how the lights
survived Nobunaga’s attack, although it is believed by some that they were
shielded somehow or somewhere on the mountain. Another tradition, however,
holds that they did go out, but that a monk was despatched to Yamadera, north
of Edo (present day Tokyo), where a lamp which had originally been lit from
that of Enryaku-ji still burnt, hence he was able to bring back a light which
was continuous from that of the original.
Sanno-in
Here, in the Konpon Chū-dō, it
is the custom for visitors to make a coin offering and place a pinch of incense
on the incense burner before the Yakushi Nyorai statue hidden away inside its
cabinet. Outside, the area in front of the temple is enclosed by a courtyard
with a small garden, with raked gravel in the centre. Around the gallery of
this courtyard there was row upon row of shodō,
or calligraphy, pinned up, jet black ink on clear white paper, each character
made up of beautifully composed and perfectly proportioned brushstrokes. From
here a set of steep steps leads up to the Monjū-rō. This is a tall building, a
kind of gatehouse built like a square arch. A steep, almost vertical staircase
is found inside each of the building’s two legs, one for ascending and the
other for descending. Removing my shoes, as is customary entering most
buildings in Japan, especially old or sacred ones, I climbed up the stairs and
found a monk kneeling before an altar (facing towards the Konpon Chū-do). He
was chanting from an open set of sutra leaves (presumably the Lotus Sutra?)
laid out before him, pausing every now and then for the briefest of moments to
clear his throat or to tap a bowl-shaped bronze bell. Along with a short row of
other visitors I kneeled in the narrow space just a few feet behind the monk
and listened as he chanted in an oddly melodious monotone. The inside of this
tall wooden loft-like building with its cramped interior rather reminded me of
the interior of a drafty old church bell-tower in England.
Jodo-in
Leaving the Monjū-rō, I explored
the rest of Enryaku-ji’s Tō-dō, or ‘East Area’, visiting the Hokke Sōji-in, the
‘Lotus Sutra Holding Temple’; and four halls close together, the Kanjo-dō,
Tō-dō, Jakkō-dō, and Amida-dō – this area of the temple complex was burnt to
the ground during Oda Nobunaga’s attack and wasn’t properly rebuilt until 1987,
some 400 years later. From here an old stone path lined with dai-dōrō stone lanterns leads through
the forest to the Sai-tō, or ‘West Area’. Passing the Sannō-in you reach the
Jōdo-in, or ‘Pure Land Temple’, which is also the mausoleum of Saicho himself.
He was laid to rest here when he died in 822, and it is therefore held to be
the purest sanctuary on the mountain. The priests who live here are called
‘Jishin’, and like the court officials of the Heian Era who used to spend
twelve years in retreat on the mountain as a service to Dengyō Daishi (the
posthumous honorific name of Saicho), they too spend twelve years here,
dedicated to a life of strict religious observance. It seemed as though not many
visitors venture in here, or if they do they largely seem to miss the small
temple at the rear, consequently – with its raked gravel – it is one of the
more serene temples on the mountain.
Ninai-do - "Benkei's Shoulders"
From here you continue
onwards, passing between the two linked meditation and chanting halls of the Ninai-dō: respectively, the
Hokke-dō and Jōgyō-dō, or the ‘Lotus’ and ‘Constant Practice’ halls, more commonly
known as ‘Benkei’s Shoulders’ after the twelfth century warrior monk turned
hero of popular folklore, whom I saw depicted in a Noh play earlier in the year
in Japan’s National Noh Theatre in Tokyo’s Shibuya. Benkei (1155-1189) is
supposed to have hoisted the two halls, which are connected by a passageway
bridge, under which the path passes, onto his shoulders as one of his many
remarkable feats of strength. Down the slope from here is the Shaka-dō, or
‘Sakyamuni Hall’, which is the main temple building of the West Area. This
building was originally part of the Onjō-ji Temple located at the foot of
Hiei-zan beside Lake Biwa, but it was moved up onto the mountain under the
orders of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the second great unifier of Japan, to replace the
hall destroyed by Nobunaga. Consequently it is now the oldest temple building
extant on the mountain, even though the nearby Ruri-dō (which I wasn’t able to
visit) which survived Nobunaga’s attack is the oldest in situ. Beyond the Shaka-dō, a climb up past the Shōrō bell leads
to a curious site – the tip of an old spire which is all that remains of a
pagoda which once stood on the spot, looking rather like a holy TV aerial! – I
forget now the story as to why the pagoda is gone, but I suspect it was very
likely burnt down or destroyed during Nobunaga’s attack and never rebuilt.
Shaka-do
The Old Pagoda Spire
To reach the third of the main
temple sites on Hiei-zan I hopped on a local bus to Yokawa, where the temple
buildings are more widely spaced within the woods. They are namely, the Yokawa
Chū-dō, the Shiki Kō-dō, the Eshin-dō, and the Jōkō-in, or ‘Temple of Constant
Light’, where I passed a monk sat writing at a desk by a window and bowed
‘hello’ to him, to which he rather auspiciously bowed and said a prayer of
blessing in return. This was the place where Nichiren had lived and studied. The
nearby Konpon Nyohō-tō, is a pagoda shrouded in the trees, where great numbers
of sutras which have been copied out as acts of piety are permanently stored
away. Not too far beyond, there is a little hall dedicated to the Goddess
Benten, set amidst a small pond, like a miniature version of the Benten-dō on
the island at the centre of Shinobazu-ike, or Shinobazu Pond, in Tokyo’s Ueno
[subject of a future Waymarks blog
post].
Shiki Ko-do
Tsuno Daishi
The Shiki Kō-dō, or ‘Four
Seasons Hall’, is also known as the Ganzan Daishi-Dō. The first name derives
from the fact that in 967 lectures on the Lotus Sutra were given here in each
of the four seasons by order of the Emperor Murakami (926-967). The other name
is derived from Ryōgen Jie Daishi or Ganzan Daishi (912-985), a monk who while meditating
here during a great plague was transformed into the image of a very hideous
demon (Tsuno Daishi, ‘Horned Great Master’) which successfully scared away the
malevolent influences causing the illness and suffering brought on by the
plague – this image, drawn by another acolyte who witnessed the transformation,
is still used today as a talisman (or ofuda
in Japanese), pinned up over doorways to ward off illness and evil. It was both
amusing and bemusing to see a tour group of older Japanese, who had been following
hot on my heels since the Shaka-dō, arriving and all hurrying in to genuflect
at each of the altars in the various halls here as it was now only minutes away
from closing for the day. All of them obliviously trampling over the neatly
raked gravel in their greed to secure the good health and good fortune which a
prayer said at this particular temple is said to guarantee.
Here too, I also saw a row of
very worn out and badly battered straw sandals all hung up in a line along a bamboo
pole. I wondered if these were the discarded pairs of sandals worn by one of
the famous ‘Marathon Monks’ of Hiei-zan? – I first learned about these remarkable
monks from a television documentary which I think was shown on the BBC in the
late 1980s. These monks undertake an extremely exacting form of walking
meditation, visiting all of the holy places on Hiei-zan repeatedly over the
course of a thousand days, dressed in striking white robes and wearing a
distinctive long, narrow hat (shaped rather like an Andean reed boat) which must be kept level as they walk, thus maintaining both
perfect poise and good posture. The mental and physical practice is all about
focus and discipline, and ultimately such an enormous feat of endurance leads
to the Buddhist goal of enlightenment. My battered old guidebook gives the
following account of them: “Followers of
Tendai believe that the route to enlightenment lies through chanting, esoteric
ritual and extreme physical endurance. The most rigorous of these practices is
the ‘thousand-day ascetic mountain pilgrimage’ in which, marathon monks, as
they are popularly known, are required to walk 40,000 km through the mountains
and streets of Kyoto in a thousand days. The equivalent of nearly a thousand
marathons. The thousand days are split into hundred day periods over seven
years, but during that period the monk has to go out every day, in all
weathers, regardless of his physical condition. He must adhere to a strict
vegetarian diet and, at one point during the seven years, go on a week-long
fast with no food, water or sleep, just for good measure.
Not surprisingly, many monks don’t
make it – in the old days they were expected to commit ritual suicide if they
had to give up. Those that do finish (nowadays about one person every five
years) are rewarded with enlightenment and become “living Buddhas.” Apparently,
the advice of modern marathon monks is much sought after by national baseball
coaches and others involved in endurance training.” (The Rough Guide to Japan,
2003?)
Shiga's Little Mount Fuji - Mount Mikami
From Yokawa I took the bus
back along the mountain to Tō-dō, and then a second bus which wound back down
the mountainside, catching further beautiful views across Lake Biwa as it
descended. The bus continued on to Kyoto, where it crossed the bridge which
marks the end of the Tokaidō, the old post road connecting Kyoto with Edo
evocatively depicted in the gorgeous woodcuts of my favourite Japanese Ukiyo-e, or ‘floating world’ artist,
Ando Hiroshige [see here, for an account of my walking part of the old Tokaidō
at Hakone]. The bus terminated at Kyoto Railway Station from which I caught the
train back to Osaka, where, having spent the best part of the day on foot
making this small pilgrimage amidst the fresh, clear pine-scented mountain air,
the hearty appetite I’d built up was happily sated with a dinner of okonomiyaki (a kind of Japanese
omelette, traditional to the Kansai region) and a large cold beer.
In 2011, after completing one of
the longest and most unusual journeys of my life, I found myself in Mexico
City. The journey from Tokyo, via Krasnoyarsk, Frankfurt, and Chicago,
travelling by cargo plane took several days (see here). A journey which now
means I have the unique distinction of having two entry stamps in my passport –
for Chicago and Mexico City – both issued on the same day! … Undoubtedly
though, one of the real highlights of this epic voyage across the northern
hemisphere was witnessing the spectacular view from the cockpit as the plane
descended through the mountains surrounding Mexico City on a moonlit night as
we came into land. 
