April 15, 2025 • 22 mins
The Grim is opening the gate deep in the forested mountains of Wakayama Prefecture lies a sacred realm suspended between worlds. Entering Okunoin Cemetery located at Mount Koya isn't merely Japan's most hallowed burial ground—it's a living testament to 1,200 years of unbroken spiritual devotion where the boundary between life and death seems remarkably thin.
The journey begins where modern Japan recedes. After a bullet train and local railway, visitors ascend 800 meters by funicular into what feels like another dimension. Crossing the First Bridge marks your departure from the realm of the living as you enter a two-kilometer path winding beneath towering cedars past over 200,000 graves and memorials.
What makes Okunoin transcendent isn't just its scale but its remarkable intersection of history and belief. Here lies Kukai (Kobo Daishi), the founder of Shingon Buddhism who never "died" but entered eternal meditation in 835 CE. Two lanterns have reportedly burned without pause for 900 years in the Torodo (Hall of Lanterns) before his mausoleum, where monks still bring meals twice daily.
The cemetery reads like a physical timeline of Japanese history. Feudal rivals Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin face each other in eternal standoff. The three great unifiers—Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu—rest among poets like Matsuo Basho. Five-ringed stone towers represent Buddhist cosmology, while Jizō statues wearing red bibs watch over departed children.
Strangely, modernity has crept into this ancient sanctuary. Corporate memorials stand alongside monuments to termites and even a replica Saturn V rocket. Local legends add another layer of mysticism—venomous snakes sealed by Kukai, a well that predicts your death if your reflection is absent, and stone steps that promise rebirth if climbed without falling.
Have you ever wandered among the dead and felt more alive? Subscribe to join us next time as we open another gate on the Grimm and explore history's most fascinating burial grounds.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Grim morning and welcome to the Grimm.
I'm your host, kristen.
On today's episode, we'll beopening the gate and entering
the Okinawa Cemetery, located atMount Koya in Wakayama
Prefecture, japan.
So grab your favorite mug, cozyup and let's take a dig into
history.
It's long overdue, on the Grimm, that we open a gate in Asia.
(00:38):
To be honest, part of the delaymay have stemmed from my own
hesitation.
After all, I've been told morethan once that I've butchered
names like Palermo in thereviews.
But places like Okinawa, theydeserve a voice on this podcast,
even if mine trembles a littlebit in an attempting
pronunciation.
So let's serve this as arespectful disclaimer.
(00:58):
I'll do my best to honor everyname spoken today.
Okinawa is far more than acemetery.
It's one of the most sacredBuddhist sites in Japan, nestled
within the deep forests ofMount Koya.
To walk its moss-covered pathsis to step into a realm
suspended between the temporaland the eternal.
Japan itself is a country splitacross time, a land where
(01:22):
bullet trains and neon towersflash like dreams, while just
beyond the city limits, historylingers in wooden shrines and
century-old rituals.
It's a place that feels morelike a paradox made real, and
nowhere is that contrast morehauntingly beautiful than
Okinawa.
Here are the dead-responnytowering cedars, their graves
(01:43):
shrouded in fog and reverence.
This isn't just a walk amongthe departed.
It's a journey through belief,memory and the thin places where
our world brushes againstsomething far older and quieter
and older it is.
As with most sacred places inJapan, the journey to Okinawa
begins not with a whisper butwith speed.
A bullet train slices throughthe countryside with the
(02:05):
precision of a whisper, but withspeed.
A bullet train slices throughthe countryside with the
precision of a blade, carryingyou away from Tokyo's electric
sprawl.
After five hours, the rhythmslows.
At Okasa's Namba station, youtransfer onto the Naka line,
where the frantic pulse of thiscity gives way to the hush of
the Kinaains.
From there, the land begins torise, the trains wind through
(02:25):
soft green hills, brush withcherry blossoms, past ancient,
broken and timber-framedbuildings that have stood since
the 9th century.
Time begins to slip, the pathstarts to seep in and then comes
the final ascent a five-minutevernacular ride from the
Gokunara Bashi Station, scaling800 meters into the heavens.
(02:47):
The trek climbs steeply, as iflifting out from one world and
into another.
With each meter, the noise fromthe modern world fades until
it's nothing but a far echobelow Okinawa, is one of the
oldest active burial grounds inthe world.
First consecrated in the year835, it holds within over
200,000 graves and memorials,making it not only one of the
(03:10):
largest cemeteries in Japan, butone of its most sacred.
The forests that surround thehallowed grounds was once vast
and wild and thick, withnature's hush.
Today, only a fraction of itremains, but what lingers is no
less haunting.
Being over 1,200 years old, thesilence here feels purposeful,
(03:31):
oh no, sentient.
The gate to Okinawa is notmerely a threshold, but it's a
passage.
The first step begins at theIchi no Hashi, or first bridge,
and crossing it feels likeleaving the world of the living
behind.
From here, a two-kilometer pathwinds deep into the forest.
Its cobblestone walkway leadscenturies ago.
This end outguides visitors,beneath towering cedars, past
(03:54):
over 200,000 graves.
The Datera are not nameless,though.
Among them lie monks, samurai,feudal lords and those who
helped once shape Japan from theshadows.
Further along, the Gobi-BashiBridge marks the boundary of the
inner sanctum.
It's here that visitors stopbefore entering sacred ground,
pausing at the bronze MizumukeJizo statues to pour water over
(04:17):
them, an offering for the soulsof lost ancestors.
The ritual is quiet, tender anddeeply haunting.
The path accumulates at Torodu,the Hall of Lanterns built
directly in front of Kukai'smausoleum.
Inside, over 10,000 lanternsglow with eternal flame.
Two of them, legends say, haveburned without pause for more
(04:38):
than 900 years.
Their light casts long shadowsthat stretch across time,
illuminating a devotion that hasnot wavered for over centuries.
Beneath the hall, the basementholds 50,000 statues, each one
donated during the 1,150thanniversary of Kuwakai's burial
in 1984.
(05:00):
They stand in eeriecongregation, silent watchers of
a legacy still burning.
The mausoleum itself, tuckedquietly behind the hall, is
off-limits.
No one enters, no one disturbs.
It's believed that Kuwakai theKobodashi never died at all,
that he simply entered deepmeditation and still waits
(05:20):
within and still breathes, bornin 774 in the ancient providence
of Sanukai, what we now callKuwagwa.
Kuwakai was first known asSaki-no-Mwa.
He came from a family ofprivilege, destined for life and
courtly comfort, but somethingin him stirred differently While
others chased rank and reason,he pursued silence, symbols and
(05:43):
the space between worlds.
He would leave behind the hallsof Confucius' learning and
enter the shadowed temples ofBuddhist mystery.
In 804, he boarded a vesselbound for China, its wooden
frame cutting through the Sea ofJapan like a question in the
dark.
His destination Chang'an, theheart of the Tang Dynasty, where
he would apprentice under thegreat master Huangua.
(06:05):
Here, in the flickeringcandlelight of the Qinglong
Monastery, kulakai was initiatedin the arcane world of esoteric
Buddhism rituals, mantras,mandalas and the silent language
of the divine.
Before his teacher passed, henamed Kulakai his heir.
With that blessing, he returnedto Japan, not just as a monk,
(06:25):
but as a bearer of cosmicsecrets.
In the years that followed,kulakai would become known as
Kobodanshi, the grandmaster whopropagated the Dharma, shaped
the soul of a nation.
He established the Shingonschool, a powerful current in
Japanese Buddhism, where thevisible and indivisible dance
together through sacred ritual.
(06:48):
But his legacy isn't confined tothe spiritual.
He was a master calligrapher, ascholar, a civil engineer who
revived reservoirs and reshapedthe landscapes.
He opened one of the firstpublic schools in Japan and may
have even helped craft the kanawriting system, giving voice to
a language that until then onlywhispered through the borrowed
(07:08):
Chinese symbols.
And then came Mount Koya, highin the mountains, where the mist
clings to cedar trunks likeincense to old robes.
He built a sanctuary, a mandelain the forest, a realm where
the sacred geometry of thecosmos could be walked, breathed
and lived.
When Kuwakai died in 835, or asmany believed enter eternal
(07:31):
meditation.
His followers buried him herein a crypt that breathes with
candlelight.
Even now, it's said, the twolanterns within have been burned
for over hundreds of years,never left to darken.
They say he hasn't truly died,that he sits cross-legged
beneath the earth, waiting,listening.
In Okinawa, his spirit lingersamong more than 200,000
(07:54):
tombstones.
Pilgrims come to whisperprayers to feel the presence of
a man who bridged heaven andearth.
Buddhist monks bring ritualofferings and meals twice a day
Along the lantern-lit path toKobo Deshu's eternal rest.
Okunwa becomes more than acemetery.
It becomes a silent battlefieldwhere the echoes of warring
(08:16):
states still linger in stone Tothe left and right of the path.
Within the Ichun Hashi and InoHashi, two figures still face
each other Takeda Shinjin, theTiger of Kai, and Uishiki Kenshi
, the Dragon of Ichiko.
These two feudal lords clashedacross five brutal battles at
Kawanakajima, and yet theirrivalry birthed more than
(08:38):
bloodshed.
When Shinjin's lands were cutoff from salt, it was Kinshin
who sent provisions, not out ofpity but respect.
Out of this gesture came theold proverb even enemies deserve
salt.
Today, the memorial's towersstand like two warriors locked
in one last stand an eternalstandoff, vermilion and solemn,
(09:00):
as if the battlefield nevertruly faded off vermilion.
And solemn as if thebattlefield never truly faded
Further.
Along this sacred path, a lonestone marks another name Oro
Nabunaga, the ruthless unifierwho once set the fires of
ambition ablaze.
His tactics rewrote the rulesof war, gunpowder, free markets
and Christian tolerance,balanced against the brutal
raising of Mount Hiei.
(09:21):
He even turned his gaze towardMount Koya, but before he could
take the nation, his closestvassal, hekiche Matsuhide,
betrayed him.
Nabunaga died at Honnoji Temple, consumed by fire.
Yet Konan, perhaps in defianceor mercy, accepted him in death.
His tower now stands amongsaints and scholars.
(09:43):
Mitsuha, too, has a memorial,but it tells a different tale.
His small Gorontu is tuckedbeside the path near the
Nakanobashi Bridge, and nomatter how often it's restored,
cracks always seem to return tothe stone, unmistakable and
unhealed.
Some say it's Nabuganda'slingering grudge, etched deeper
than time.
(10:03):
Just beyond, another name risesTayutomi Hideyoshi, the peasant
foreign general who rose to ruleit all.
After Nabunaga's fall,hideyoshi completed the
unification of Japan.
His reach extended into landsurveys, rights, taxation,
cultural refinement and war.
From Osaka Castle he sent hisarmies into Korea, and though he
(10:26):
sought to suppress Mount Koya,he also restored it.
He built the Saiganji Temple tohonor his late mother, and his
memorial tower now stands justbefore the Yobubashi Bridge, one
step above the path, his soulforever climbing even after
death.
Near him lies a humbler stonemarking the memory of Ishida
(10:48):
Minasari, hideyoshi's loyalvassal.
After Hideyoshi's death,minasari took up arms to protect
his master's legacy.
At the Battle of Sakakahara hestood against Tagu Leusu and
lost, captured and executed.
Mahusari's grave in Okinawa ismodest A stone stupa is small
(11:09):
and quiet, the reward forloyalty in a world written by
the victors.
Taku Ka Leusa, the man who rosefrom hostage to shogun, built an
empire that lasted over 260years.
His mausoleum in Okonat, nearthe Nayoni Duke Hall, honors
both him and his son Hitada.
(11:29):
Designated as an importantcultural property, it forms the
heart of a larger network offeudal memorials, proof that
even in death the Tokugawa namecast a long shadow.
But not all who dwell here worearmor.
Matsuo Basho, the wanderingpoet of the Edo period, came to
Mount Koya not with a sword orstrategy, but with verse.
(11:51):
Twice he visited these sacredheights the first time to mourn
his lord and the second to penthe words the voice of the
pheasant longs for my parents.
A stone bearing that versestill stands along the Okinawa
approach.
It's said Pelshu's ashes werelater interned in the Hunin
Temple and even now visitorsleave behind haiku notebooks in
(12:12):
his honor.
And tucked deeper into the woods, near the old Mikiyodu Hall
stands a tower more tragic thantriumphant.
It belongs to the Shimazu clan,built to honor the war dead of
the ill-fated Korean invasion.
Shimazu Yoshihiro, thoughvictorious in battle, lost his
son and countless soldiers.
(12:32):
After Hideyoshi's death, thecampaign crumbled and the
memorial stands not for victorybut for sorrow for those who
marched into foreign soil andnever returned.
Okinawa is not just a place ofpeace.
It's a forest of legends, wheredragons and tigers rest beside
poets and rebels, where saintsshare the ground with betrayers
(12:53):
and where every cracked stone,every weathered step bears the
weight of history too proud andtoo haunted to forget.
Scattered throughout Okinawa,like guardians from another age,
are countless stone towers,known as Gorin II.
They rise in silence, fivesacred shapes, stacked one on
top of the other, weathered bymoss and sentries, yet still
(13:15):
echoing the structure of thecosmos.
Each chair represents one ofthe five great elements sky,
wind, fire, water, earth.
Together they form more than agravestone.
Their miniature mandela iscarved in stone, physical
embodiments of Dhanichi Norai,the cosmic Buddha whose presence
flows through all things.
It's a tradition that beganright here on Mount Koya during
(13:38):
the Heian period.
From top to bottom, eachsegment bears a Sanskrit symbol
etched with purpose.
The jewels shape Kuren for thevoid, the crescent Furen for
rind, the triangle Karen forfire, the circle Surin for water
and the square Chayren forearth.
Together they remind us thatdeath is not an ending but a
(14:00):
return to source, to silence, toelemental form.
But not all figures here standtall in geometric silence.
Some smile.
The facing throughout thegrounds, half in shadow, half in
moonlight, belong to JitsuBatsaru, the beloved Baritsapa
of protection.
These stone statues come in allshapes and sizes tall and lean,
(14:22):
short and stout, some so smallthey're hidden, like Easter eggs
, in the crooks of tree trunksor tucked beside ancient graves.
Jitsu is often depicted smilinggently, a figure of compassion
and warmth.
Some even bear a pink blushacross their stone cheeks
painted lovingly to make themappear almost joyful, like
(14:43):
characters from some softerworlds.
Visitors who have lost children,born or unborn, tie small red
bibs around the statue's necks,axing Jezu to watch over their
little ones in the afterlife.
The bibs flutter slightly inthe breeze like whispered
prayers.
There's somethingheartbreakingly tender about
them, and innocence folded intothe sorrow of the stones.
(15:05):
To walk through Okinawa is topass through these guardians,
tawaringorin too, that speak ofeternity, and Jizu's statues
that hold grief with graceTogether.
They remind us that in thisforest of the dead, love and
loss are carved into everycorner.
Yet even in this sacred spacewhere monks still bring
(15:26):
offerings to a man believed tobe eternally meditating beneath
the soil, to a man believed tobe eternally meditating beneath
the soil, time does not standstill.
The forest may whisper withancient prayers, but just beyond
its older shadows, the modernworld has crept in quietly,
curiously and at timesunnervingly.
A second entrance near theOkinawa May bus stop leads to a
(15:47):
newer section of the cemetery,where tradition meets the
strange aftertaste of corporateeternity.
Here lie company tombspurchased not for families but
for employees.
The first was commissioned in1938 by Kawasaki Mashushida,
founder of Panasonic.
And amid these modern memorialsare some odd sights A monument
(16:09):
dedicated to the souls oftermites exterminated in pest
control and a towering replicaof the Saturn V rocket, courtesy
of Shinmeiwa Industries, thoughthe company had no part in the
Apollo 11 mission.
These additions, bizarre asthey may seem, speak to the way
even the modern world tries tolay its offerings at the feet of
(16:31):
the eternal.
Maokoya is a mountain of silenceand sanctity, but beneath its
forested hush lies a pulse oflegend coiled in its roots,
whispered through the rain andcarved into the stone steps that
guide the faithful to Okinawa.
Long before the monks sweptthese paths and pilgrims lay
lanterns in the mists, maokoyawas home to something far more
(16:54):
menacing giant, venomous snakesknown as habu.
These creatures aren't justnatural predators.
They were patient, lurking inthe underbrush.
They would wait for worshippersto pass, striking from the
shadows the mountain, the richin nature grew feared, and so
Kopodashi Kukai, the greatmaster, took action.
(17:15):
He bound the snakes, not inchains but in ritual, sealing
them inside the bristles of abamboo broom.
He promised the seal would onlybreak when people once again
swept the mountain with bamboo.
Since then, bamboo has vanishedfrom Koya's soil Planting.
It was forbidden a quietordinance known as the
Prohibition of AdventitiousBamboo.
(17:35):
Instead, the monks turned tonature's other gifts.
Indoors, they sweep brooms madeof Koya Boko, a cypress born in
the mountain itself.
Outdoors, they use branches ofKamoji, the spice brush.
These weren't just tools.
They were wards, a way ofkeeping what sleeps asleep.
But the mountain doesn't justkeep monsters beneath its
(17:57):
surface.
It holds other secrets, smaller, quieter, just as chilling.
There, in the NakanobashiBridge, on the sacred approach
to Okinawa, there's a small hallhousing a statue known as the
Sweating Jizu.
Next to him is a well humbleand often overlooked.
They call the Nakushi no Ai,the Medicine.
(18:18):
Well, some say its waters cancure illness.
But as with all things on thismountain, blessings come wrapped
in warnings.
During the Edo period, a rumortook root that if you peer into
the well and you don't see yourreflection, you only have three
years left to live.
Senson the well has earned anew name Kagami no Ai, the
(18:40):
mirror.
Well, even now, pilgrimsapproach it slowly, unsure
whether they're seeking healingor prophecy.
The reindeer also holds meaningtoo.
Mount Koya forbids the takingof life, no animal is to be
killed, no meat consumed, andwhen outsiders come bearing the
customs of flesh and bone, theskies weep.
Some say it was Kuwakai'ssorrow, manifesting his tears,
(19:03):
soaking the sacred ground.
Others believe he summoned thestorm himself because the
mountain of blood and impurity.
Either way, rain still fallseach year on the anniversary of
his death, as if mourningrepeats itself without fail.
But then there's the stepsAlong the path from the Tsutami
well to the Gabubashi bridge,you'll find a stone slope known
(19:27):
as the Kakubanzaki.
Here there are 43 steps, but italways wasn't so.
The original count was 42, anumber spoken with dread for, as
in Japanese, shin-ni can meanto die.
So one step was added, asymbolic defiance against death
itself.
It said that if you climb all43 steps, you'll overcome death
(19:49):
and will be reborn in paradise.
But the mountain doesn't alwaysgive promises lightly.
There's also a darker tale thatlingers in the moss along the
stone that if you fall on theKaku-Banzaki, you will only live
for three more years.
The slope has another name,whispered by those who believe
it the San-Niaki.
The Three-Year Hill.
(20:11):
A warning, perhaps, or acountdown disguised as a caution
.
Here in Okinawa, the sacred andthe surreal walk hand in hand.
A place of prayer, sealedcurses and sacred cemetery when
even the rain remembers.
The stone counts your steps andthe reflection in the well may
not look back.
(20:31):
This forested necropolis is notmerely a resting place for the
dead.
It's where time falls in onitself, where sentries breathe
in rhythm with rustling leavesand where memory glows softly by
lantern light.
Here, emperors, outcasts,saints, soldiers, dragons and
poets all share the same soil,watched over by cedars older
(20:54):
than war, older than empire.
In 2004, okinawa stepped fromshadow into spotlight, earning
its place as a World HeritageSite.
With this recognition, theworld turned its gaze toward the
sacred forest of the dead.
For many, it was their firstinvitation to wander its hushed,
haunted paths and to beginunraveling the centuries of
(21:17):
mystery buried beneath its cedarcanopy.
Visitors are encouraged to walkthe grounds at night.
No ghost doors follow yoursteps, no apparitions rise from
the stones.
And yet many speak of a feeling, not of fear but unease, as if
something ancient watches fromthe shadows, as if the silence
(21:38):
is not empty but full.
Perhaps that's what makesOkinawa so powerful it doesn't
need hauntings.
The weight of its history isits own spirit.
The grave grind for Okinawa isa cappuccino from Higurashi.
For more honorary grinds in thearea, please visit the-grimcom.
(21:58):
For now we're closing the gateon Okinawa.
We hope you enjoyed our diginto history If you did
subscribe today to join us nexttime when we open the gate on
the Grimm.
Grim morning and welcome to the Grimm.
I'm your host, kristen.
On today's episode, we'll beopening the gate and entering
the Okinawa Cemetery, located atMount Koya in Wakayama
Prefecture, japan.
So grab your favorite mug, cozyup and let's take a dig into
history.
It's long overdue, on the Grimm, that we open a gate in Asia.
(00:38):
To be honest, part of the delaymay have stemmed from my own
hesitation.
After all, I've been told morethan once that I've butchered
names like Palermo in thereviews.
But places like Okinawa, theydeserve a voice on this podcast,
even if mine trembles a littlebit in an attempting
pronunciation.
So let's serve this as arespectful disclaimer.
(00:58):
I'll do my best to honor everyname spoken today.
Okinawa is far more than acemetery.
It's one of the most sacredBuddhist sites in Japan, nestled
within the deep forests ofMount Koya.
To walk its moss-covered pathsis to step into a realm
suspended between the temporaland the eternal.
Japan itself is a country splitacross time, a land where
(01:22):
bullet trains and neon towersflash like dreams, while just
beyond the city limits, historylingers in wooden shrines and
century-old rituals.
It's a place that feels morelike a paradox made real, and
nowhere is that contrast morehauntingly beautiful than
Okinawa.
Here are the dead-responnytowering cedars, their graves
(01:43):
shrouded in fog and reverence.
This isn't just a walk amongthe departed.
It's a journey through belief,memory and the thin places where
our world brushes againstsomething far older and quieter
and older it is.
As with most sacred places inJapan, the journey to Okinawa
begins not with a whisper butwith speed.
A bullet train slices throughthe countryside with the
(02:05):
precision of a whisper, but withspeed.
A bullet train slices throughthe countryside with the
precision of a blade, carryingyou away from Tokyo's electric
sprawl.
After five hours, the rhythmslows.
At Okasa's Namba station, youtransfer onto the Naka line,
where the frantic pulse of thiscity gives way to the hush of
the Kinaains.
From there, the land begins torise, the trains wind through
(02:25):
soft green hills, brush withcherry blossoms, past ancient,
broken and timber-framedbuildings that have stood since
the 9th century.
Time begins to slip, the pathstarts to seep in and then comes
the final ascent a five-minutevernacular ride from the
Gokunara Bashi Station, scaling800 meters into the heavens.
(02:47):
The trek climbs steeply, as iflifting out from one world and
into another.
With each meter, the noise fromthe modern world fades until
it's nothing but a far echobelow Okinawa, is one of the
oldest active burial grounds inthe world.
First consecrated in the year835, it holds within over
200,000 graves and memorials,making it not only one of the
(03:10):
largest cemeteries in Japan, butone of its most sacred.
The forests that surround thehallowed grounds was once vast
and wild and thick, withnature's hush.
Today, only a fraction of itremains, but what lingers is no
less haunting.
Being over 1,200 years old, thesilence here feels purposeful,
(03:31):
oh no, sentient.
The gate to Okinawa is notmerely a threshold, but it's a
passage.
The first step begins at theIchi no Hashi, or first bridge,
and crossing it feels likeleaving the world of the living
behind.
From here, a two-kilometer pathwinds deep into the forest.
Its cobblestone walkway leadscenturies ago.
This end outguides visitors,beneath towering cedars, past
(03:54):
over 200,000 graves.
The Datera are not nameless,though.
Among them lie monks, samurai,feudal lords and those who
helped once shape Japan from theshadows.
Further along, the Gobi-BashiBridge marks the boundary of the
inner sanctum.
It's here that visitors stopbefore entering sacred ground,
pausing at the bronze MizumukeJizo statues to pour water over
(04:17):
them, an offering for the soulsof lost ancestors.
The ritual is quiet, tender anddeeply haunting.
The path accumulates at Torodu,the Hall of Lanterns built
directly in front of Kukai'smausoleum.
Inside, over 10,000 lanternsglow with eternal flame.
Two of them, legends say, haveburned without pause for more
(04:38):
than 900 years.
Their light casts long shadowsthat stretch across time,
illuminating a devotion that hasnot wavered for over centuries.
Beneath the hall, the basementholds 50,000 statues, each one
donated during the 1,150thanniversary of Kuwakai's burial
in 1984.
(05:00):
They stand in eeriecongregation, silent watchers of
a legacy still burning.
The mausoleum itself, tuckedquietly behind the hall, is
off-limits.
No one enters, no one disturbs.
It's believed that Kuwakai theKobodashi never died at all,
that he simply entered deepmeditation and still waits
(05:20):
within and still breathes, bornin 774 in the ancient providence
of Sanukai, what we now callKuwagwa.
Kuwakai was first known asSaki-no-Mwa.
He came from a family ofprivilege, destined for life and
courtly comfort, but somethingin him stirred differently While
others chased rank and reason,he pursued silence, symbols and
(05:43):
the space between worlds.
He would leave behind the hallsof Confucius' learning and
enter the shadowed temples ofBuddhist mystery.
In 804, he boarded a vesselbound for China, its wooden
frame cutting through the Sea ofJapan like a question in the
dark.
His destination Chang'an, theheart of the Tang Dynasty, where
he would apprentice under thegreat master Huangua.
(06:05):
Here, in the flickeringcandlelight of the Qinglong
Monastery, kulakai was initiatedin the arcane world of esoteric
Buddhism rituals, mantras,mandalas and the silent language
of the divine.
Before his teacher passed, henamed Kulakai his heir.
With that blessing, he returnedto Japan, not just as a monk,
(06:25):
but as a bearer of cosmicsecrets.
In the years that followed,kulakai would become known as
Kobodanshi, the grandmaster whopropagated the Dharma, shaped
the soul of a nation.
He established the Shingonschool, a powerful current in
Japanese Buddhism, where thevisible and indivisible dance
together through sacred ritual.
(06:48):
But his legacy isn't confined tothe spiritual.
He was a master calligrapher, ascholar, a civil engineer who
revived reservoirs and reshapedthe landscapes.
He opened one of the firstpublic schools in Japan and may
have even helped craft the kanawriting system, giving voice to
a language that until then onlywhispered through the borrowed
(07:08):
Chinese symbols.
And then came Mount Koya, highin the mountains, where the mist
clings to cedar trunks likeincense to old robes.
He built a sanctuary, a mandelain the forest, a realm where
the sacred geometry of thecosmos could be walked, breathed
and lived.
When Kuwakai died in 835, or asmany believed enter eternal
(07:31):
meditation.
His followers buried him herein a crypt that breathes with
candlelight.
Even now, it's said, the twolanterns within have been burned
for over hundreds of years,never left to darken.
They say he hasn't truly died,that he sits cross-legged
beneath the earth, waiting,listening.
In Okinawa, his spirit lingersamong more than 200,000
(07:54):
tombstones.
Pilgrims come to whisperprayers to feel the presence of
a man who bridged heaven andearth.
Buddhist monks bring ritualofferings and meals twice a day
Along the lantern-lit path toKobo Deshu's eternal rest.
Okunwa becomes more than acemetery.
It becomes a silent battlefieldwhere the echoes of warring
(08:16):
states still linger in stone Tothe left and right of the path.
Within the Ichun Hashi and InoHashi, two figures still face
each other Takeda Shinjin, theTiger of Kai, and Uishiki Kenshi
, the Dragon of Ichiko.
These two feudal lords clashedacross five brutal battles at
Kawanakajima, and yet theirrivalry birthed more than
(08:38):
bloodshed.
When Shinjin's lands were cutoff from salt, it was Kinshin
who sent provisions, not out ofpity but respect.
Out of this gesture came theold proverb even enemies deserve
salt.
Today, the memorial's towersstand like two warriors locked
in one last stand an eternalstandoff, vermilion and solemn,
(09:00):
as if the battlefield nevertruly faded off vermilion.
And solemn as if thebattlefield never truly faded
Further.
Along this sacred path, a lonestone marks another name Oro
Nabunaga, the ruthless unifierwho once set the fires of
ambition ablaze.
His tactics rewrote the rulesof war, gunpowder, free markets
and Christian tolerance,balanced against the brutal
raising of Mount Hiei.
(09:21):
He even turned his gaze towardMount Koya, but before he could
take the nation, his closestvassal, hekiche Matsuhide,
betrayed him.
Nabunaga died at Honnoji Temple, consumed by fire.
Yet Konan, perhaps in defianceor mercy, accepted him in death.
His tower now stands amongsaints and scholars.
(09:43):
Mitsuha, too, has a memorial,but it tells a different tale.
His small Gorontu is tuckedbeside the path near the
Nakanobashi Bridge, and nomatter how often it's restored,
cracks always seem to return tothe stone, unmistakable and
unhealed.
Some say it's Nabuganda'slingering grudge, etched deeper
than time.
(10:03):
Just beyond, another name risesTayutomi Hideyoshi, the peasant
foreign general who rose to ruleit all.
After Nabunaga's fall,hideyoshi completed the
unification of Japan.
His reach extended into landsurveys, rights, taxation,
cultural refinement and war.
From Osaka Castle he sent hisarmies into Korea, and though he
(10:26):
sought to suppress Mount Koya,he also restored it.
He built the Saiganji Temple tohonor his late mother, and his
memorial tower now stands justbefore the Yobubashi Bridge, one
step above the path, his soulforever climbing even after
death.
Near him lies a humbler stonemarking the memory of Ishida
(10:48):
Minasari, hideyoshi's loyalvassal.
After Hideyoshi's death,minasari took up arms to protect
his master's legacy.
At the Battle of Sakakahara hestood against Tagu Leusu and
lost, captured and executed.
Mahusari's grave in Okinawa ismodest A stone stupa is small
(11:09):
and quiet, the reward forloyalty in a world written by
the victors.
Taku Ka Leusa, the man who rosefrom hostage to shogun, built an
empire that lasted over 260years.
His mausoleum in Okonat, nearthe Nayoni Duke Hall, honors
both him and his son Hitada.
(11:29):
Designated as an importantcultural property, it forms the
heart of a larger network offeudal memorials, proof that
even in death the Tokugawa namecast a long shadow.
But not all who dwell here worearmor.
Matsuo Basho, the wanderingpoet of the Edo period, came to
Mount Koya not with a sword orstrategy, but with verse.
(11:51):
Twice he visited these sacredheights the first time to mourn
his lord and the second to penthe words the voice of the
pheasant longs for my parents.
A stone bearing that versestill stands along the Okinawa
approach.
It's said Pelshu's ashes werelater interned in the Hunin
Temple and even now visitorsleave behind haiku notebooks in
(12:12):
his honor.
And tucked deeper into the woods, near the old Mikiyodu Hall
stands a tower more tragic thantriumphant.
It belongs to the Shimazu clan,built to honor the war dead of
the ill-fated Korean invasion.
Shimazu Yoshihiro, thoughvictorious in battle, lost his
son and countless soldiers.
(12:32):
After Hideyoshi's death, thecampaign crumbled and the
memorial stands not for victorybut for sorrow for those who
marched into foreign soil andnever returned.
Okinawa is not just a place ofpeace.
It's a forest of legends, wheredragons and tigers rest beside
poets and rebels, where saintsshare the ground with betrayers
(12:53):
and where every cracked stone,every weathered step bears the
weight of history too proud andtoo haunted to forget.
Scattered throughout Okinawa,like guardians from another age,
are countless stone towers,known as Gorin II.
They rise in silence, fivesacred shapes, stacked one on
top of the other, weathered bymoss and sentries, yet still
(13:15):
echoing the structure of thecosmos.
Each chair represents one ofthe five great elements sky,
wind, fire, water, earth.
Together they form more than agravestone.
Their miniature mandela iscarved in stone, physical
embodiments of Dhanichi Norai,the cosmic Buddha whose presence
flows through all things.
It's a tradition that beganright here on Mount Koya during
(13:38):
the Heian period.
From top to bottom, eachsegment bears a Sanskrit symbol
etched with purpose.
The jewels shape Kuren for thevoid, the crescent Furen for
rind, the triangle Karen forfire, the circle Surin for water
and the square Chayren forearth.
Together they remind us thatdeath is not an ending but a
(14:00):
return to source, to silence, toelemental form.
But not all figures here standtall in geometric silence.
Some smile.
The facing throughout thegrounds, half in shadow, half in
moonlight, belong to JitsuBatsaru, the beloved Baritsapa
of protection.
These stone statues come in allshapes and sizes tall and lean,
(14:22):
short and stout, some so smallthey're hidden, like Easter eggs
, in the crooks of tree trunksor tucked beside ancient graves.
Jitsu is often depicted smilinggently, a figure of compassion
and warmth.
Some even bear a pink blushacross their stone cheeks
painted lovingly to make themappear almost joyful, like
(14:43):
characters from some softerworlds.
Visitors who have lost children,born or unborn, tie small red
bibs around the statue's necks,axing Jezu to watch over their
little ones in the afterlife.
The bibs flutter slightly inthe breeze like whispered
prayers.
There's somethingheartbreakingly tender about
them, and innocence folded intothe sorrow of the stones.
(15:05):
To walk through Okinawa is topass through these guardians,
tawaringorin too, that speak ofeternity, and Jizu's statues
that hold grief with graceTogether.
They remind us that in thisforest of the dead, love and
loss are carved into everycorner.
Yet even in this sacred spacewhere monks still bring
(15:26):
offerings to a man believed tobe eternally meditating beneath
the soil, to a man believed tobe eternally meditating beneath
the soil, time does not standstill.
The forest may whisper withancient prayers, but just beyond
its older shadows, the modernworld has crept in quietly,
curiously and at timesunnervingly.
A second entrance near theOkinawa May bus stop leads to a
(15:47):
newer section of the cemetery,where tradition meets the
strange aftertaste of corporateeternity.
Here lie company tombspurchased not for families but
for employees.
The first was commissioned in1938 by Kawasaki Mashushida,
founder of Panasonic.
And amid these modern memorialsare some odd sights A monument
(16:09):
dedicated to the souls oftermites exterminated in pest
control and a towering replicaof the Saturn V rocket, courtesy
of Shinmeiwa Industries, thoughthe company had no part in the
Apollo 11 mission.
These additions, bizarre asthey may seem, speak to the way
even the modern world tries tolay its offerings at the feet of
(16:31):
the eternal.
Maokoya is a mountain of silenceand sanctity, but beneath its
forested hush lies a pulse oflegend coiled in its roots,
whispered through the rain andcarved into the stone steps that
guide the faithful to Okinawa.
Long before the monks sweptthese paths and pilgrims lay
lanterns in the mists, maokoyawas home to something far more
(16:54):
menacing giant, venomous snakesknown as habu.
These creatures aren't justnatural predators.
They were patient, lurking inthe underbrush.
They would wait for worshippersto pass, striking from the
shadows the mountain, the richin nature grew feared, and so
Kopodashi Kukai, the greatmaster, took action.
(17:15):
He bound the snakes, not inchains but in ritual, sealing
them inside the bristles of abamboo broom.
He promised the seal would onlybreak when people once again
swept the mountain with bamboo.
Since then, bamboo has vanishedfrom Koya's soil Planting.
It was forbidden a quietordinance known as the
Prohibition of AdventitiousBamboo.
(17:35):
Instead, the monks turned tonature's other gifts.
Indoors, they sweep brooms madeof Koya Boko, a cypress born in
the mountain itself.
Outdoors, they use branches ofKamoji, the spice brush.
These weren't just tools.
They were wards, a way ofkeeping what sleeps asleep.
But the mountain doesn't justkeep monsters beneath its
(17:57):
surface.
It holds other secrets, smaller, quieter, just as chilling.
There, in the NakanobashiBridge, on the sacred approach
to Okinawa, there's a small hallhousing a statue known as the
Sweating Jizu.
Next to him is a well humbleand often overlooked.
They call the Nakushi no Ai,the Medicine.
(18:18):
Well, some say its waters cancure illness.
But as with all things on thismountain, blessings come wrapped
in warnings.
During the Edo period, a rumortook root that if you peer into
the well and you don't see yourreflection, you only have three
years left to live.
Senson the well has earned anew name Kagami no Ai, the
(18:40):
mirror.
Well, even now, pilgrimsapproach it slowly, unsure
whether they're seeking healingor prophecy.
The reindeer also holds meaningtoo.
Mount Koya forbids the takingof life, no animal is to be
killed, no meat consumed, andwhen outsiders come bearing the
customs of flesh and bone, theskies weep.
Some say it was Kuwakai'ssorrow, manifesting his tears,
(19:03):
soaking the sacred ground.
Others believe he summoned thestorm himself because the
mountain of blood and impurity.
Either way, rain still fallseach year on the anniversary of
his death, as if mourningrepeats itself without fail.
But then there's the stepsAlong the path from the Tsutami
well to the Gabubashi bridge,you'll find a stone slope known
(19:27):
as the Kakubanzaki.
Here there are 43 steps, but italways wasn't so.
The original count was 42, anumber spoken with dread for, as
in Japanese, shin-ni can meanto die.
So one step was added, asymbolic defiance against death
itself.
It said that if you climb all43 steps, you'll overcome death
(19:49):
and will be reborn in paradise.
But the mountain doesn't alwaysgive promises lightly.
There's also a darker tale thatlingers in the moss along the
stone that if you fall on theKaku-Banzaki, you will only live
for three more years.
The slope has another name,whispered by those who believe
it the San-Niaki.
The Three-Year Hill.
(20:11):
A warning, perhaps, or acountdown disguised as a caution
.
Here in Okinawa, the sacred andthe surreal walk hand in hand.
A place of prayer, sealedcurses and sacred cemetery when
even the rain remembers.
The stone counts your steps andthe reflection in the well may
not look back.
(20:31):
This forested necropolis is notmerely a resting place for the
dead.
It's where time falls in onitself, where sentries breathe
in rhythm with rustling leavesand where memory glows softly by
lantern light.
Here, emperors, outcasts,saints, soldiers, dragons and
poets all share the same soil,watched over by cedars older
(20:54):
than war, older than empire.
In 2004, okinawa stepped fromshadow into spotlight, earning
its place as a World HeritageSite.
With this recognition, theworld turned its gaze toward the
sacred forest of the dead.
For many, it was their firstinvitation to wander its hushed,
haunted paths and to beginunraveling the centuries of
(21:17):
mystery buried beneath its cedarcanopy.
Visitors are encouraged to walkthe grounds at night.
No ghost doors follow yoursteps, no apparitions rise from
the stones.
And yet many speak of a feeling, not of fear but unease, as if
something ancient watches fromthe shadows, as if the silence
(21:38):
is not empty but full.
Perhaps that's what makesOkinawa so powerful it doesn't
need hauntings.
The weight of its history isits own spirit.
The grave grind for Okinawa isa cappuccino from Higurashi.
For more honorary grinds in thearea, please visit the-grimcom.
(21:58):
For now we're closing the gateon Okinawa.
We hope you enjoyed our diginto history If you did
subscribe today to join us nexttime when we open the gate on
the Grimm.
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