Need a spiritual lift? Try the Shikoku Henro pilgrimage hike in Japan

The morning trade at Ryozen-ji temple is always brisk. It’s just after nine and pilgrims are stocking up on essential items: wooden staffs, conical sedge hats, guidebooks, brass bells, zodiac charms, white oizuru tunics. Many are queuing for their first temple stamp, watching the artist frank their books in crimson ink and hand-painted kanji letters.

Outside, the scent of sandalwood fills the courtyard as people light candles and burn incense sticks — three each, representing their past, present and future — before depositing prayer slips and reciting sutras outside the shrine. The drone of chanting fills the quadrangle, punctuated by the tinkle of coin offerings and the occasional clang of the temple’s bell. It’s busy, but at the same time, peaceful. For a thousand years, this has been the way on the Shikoku Henro.

There are many pilgrims’ roads in Japan, but the Henro is among the oldest and, at 750 miles, the longest. The trail circumnavigates Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s four main islands: mountainous, forested and ringed by rugged coast, it’s also the least visited by tourists. To complete the trail, pilgrims, or o-henro-san, must visit 88 temples around the island. Number 1, where I am this morning, is Ryozen-ji, close to the eastern city of Tokushima, while Number 88, Okubo-ji, is near Takamatsu on the north coast. En route, pilgrims are said to transition through four stages on their spiritual journey: awakening, training, enlightenment and, finally, nirvana.

Every o-henro-san has their own reasons for undertaking this pilgrimage. Many are marking a significant moment in life: a change of jobs, childbirth, an illness or a milestone age. Others seek inner peace or spiritual guidance. The rules are surprisingly flexible: you can tick off the temples in any order, in one epic trek, or spread over years, collecting stamps as proof of each visit. My own mini-pilgrimage will carry me as far as Temple 21, Tairyu-ji — a journey of four days and 30 miles — but to hike the whole Henro takes 40 to 50 days. That’s if you walk at all, of course: many modern pilgrims don’t, touring it instead by car, minibus, coach or bicycle. The method isn’t important, I’m told. The journey is what matters.

The father of the trail

Sunlight flickers over the path as I trudge uphill, tuning into the stillness and quiet of the forest. Cedars rise like pillars along the trail. The reedy chitter of cicadas fills the air. Bamboo staves clunk together like wind-chimes. It feels like stepping into a meditation video. After a while, I hear running water: it’s a spring guarded by a Jizo, a stone statue dedicated to children and travellers, wearing a protective pink shroud and knitted beanie. As is custom, I douse his head for luck, then move onwards.

The most recognisable figure along the Shikoku Henro is Kukai, or Kobo Daishi, the founder of esoteric Shingon Buddhism, one of several versions of Buddhism practiced in Japan. He was born in 774, in the grounds of Zentsu-ji — Temple 75. Pilgrimage was a key part of his practice and it’s said he established the Shikoku Henro during his own quest for enlightenment. For today’s pilgrims, he has become a walking buddy, personal trainer and guru in one. Statues of him appear everywhere: resting by fountains, shaded by wisteria, hidden in shrines. Even the wooden kongo-zue staffs pilgrims carry are branded Dogyo-Ninin (‘We two pilgrims together’), symbolising Kukai’s constant companionship along their journey.

Under a sprawling camphor tree, I meet Adachi Shinobu, a three-time Henro veteran. Previous circuits were made with her partner and her dogs named — fittingly — Ku and Kai. “Kukai is my hero,” she says. “Sometimes pilgrimage can be lonely. Sometimes it is confusing. Sometimes you get lost. But Kukai is always there to show the way.”

Just like life, pilgrimage contains ups, downs, unexpected meetings, lessons and hardships. When it gets tough, there’s only one answer: keep on going. That’s a handy mantra for the Henro: while some of it follows main roads, other sections veer up mountainsides, circle headlands, disappear down rivers or plunge into valleys. Knotted roots and tangled vines lie in wait for unsuspecting boots. Spider webs festoon the trail at face height. Most challenging of all are the staircases known, ominously, as henro-korogashi (literally, ‘pilgrim tumblers’). It doesn’t take long to find out why.

Temple tales

These days, the few o-henro-san that choose to hike the trail on foot either camp or stay at ryokan (inns), but a century ago, many temples offered shukubo (pilgrims’ lodgings). Only a handful remain now. One of them is at Anraku-ji (Temple 6), the Temple of Everlasting Joy, which I reach, hot and tired, at the end of my first day. It’s typical of the temples on the Shikoku Henro. An imposing wooden gate leads into the inner courtyard, filled with clipped trees, gravel gardens, ponds, fountains and a small pagoda. Further in are the two main shrines — one for the guardian deity, one for Kukai — and temple buildings. The lodgings are deliberately simple. Rooms are bare save for a wooden table and futon mattress. Meals are served communally in the dining hall, and there’s a hot onsen bath where pilgrims can soothe tired limbs.

After my ablutions, I meet Anraku-ji’s head monk, Hatakeda Yuho, over afternoon tea and rice crackers. He wears the everyday uniform of a Shingon monk — white under-robes, black over-robes and orange rakusu, a patchwork panel signifying his ordination. His family has served here for four generations, he tells me, and he feels proud that Anraku-ji still offers pilgrims the chance to experience life inside a working temple.

“People come to Shikoku to find new paths,” he says. “On a pilgrimage, you step away from the day-to-day to clear your mind and refresh your thinking.” He sips his tea thoughtfully. For him, the power of the Henro is the opportunity to follow in Kukai’s footsteps. “But everyone has their own reasons. And everyone learns something different from the experience,” he adds, gnomically.

Later that evening, he invites me to a ceremony to honour our ancestors. Silently, we pad into the maze of inner sanctums, sitting cross-legged in the prayer hall as Hatakeda-san chants the blessing, bookended by the clang of a brass gong. We scribble the names of lost loved ones on parchment slips, then watch them float in candle-lit baskets down the temple’s sacred stream — symbolic of our messages being carried into the afterlife. It’s a centuries-old ritual and a surprisingly moving one. Another custom that endures on the Shikoku Henro is o-settai, the giving of alms to pilgrims. Several times, I’m stopped by passers-by, who press sweets, snacks, bottles of pop or chocolate bars into my hand, but refuse payment, topping up their own karmic bank balance instead.

Often, the pilgrimage feels like a journey into Japan’s past. The oldest temples date from the 1600s, the product of years of painstaking craftsmanship, but their names — Hovering Clouds Temple, Golden Spring Temple, Medicine King Temple — are straight out of myth. Each has its own panoply of legends, commemorated in strange deities and carvings of dragons, serpents, elephants and cranes. Many tales concern Kukai’s exploits: a feast magicked from a single fish; a deathly curse placed on a selfish miser; a holy spring created with a strike of his staff.

My favourite is from Shosan-ji — Temple 12, the Burning Mountain Temple — which I reach at the end of day three. It’s one of the most atmospheric of all the 88 temples. A winding walkway lined by Buddhas and Bodhisattvas leads to the gate, while in the inner courtyard cedars look like the columns of a Tolkienesque cathedral, their trunks dissolving upwards into mist. Here, it is said, Kukai encountered a fire-belching dragon that laid waste to the surrounding forests. He banished it into the mountain where it still sleeps but, from time to time, it wakes up — causing the earthquakes to which Shikoku, like much of Japan, is so prone.

Songs from the mountain

On my final day, I arrive early at Kakurin-ji — Temple 20, the Crane Forest Temple — descending another pilgrim-tumbler into a cool valley, shaded by trees. A woman from the nearby village is harvesting peaches, apples and sudachi, a lime-like citrus fruit. She offers me some for refreshment. The peaches are sweet, the sudachi bracingly sour. Of course, she refuses payment. “O-settai,” she says.

From here, it’s a punishing, switchback climb to journey’s end: Tairyu-ji, the Great Dragon Temple, where Kukai meditated for 50 days, guarded by the temple’s namesake dragon. Officially, it is a nansho, or ‘difficult place’: marooned on a mountaintop at 1,500ft, reached via a seemingly never-ending staircase that saps the legs and the spirit in equal measure. For more indolent pilgrims, a cable-car conveniently buzzes to the top.

By the time I reach the summit, it’s early afternoon. Fog is rolling over the mountain, casting everything in a soft, grey light. At the gate, I perform my usual ritual — bow, cleanse hands, sound the gong, mutter a prayer — then venture inside. Dragons materialise: carved under eaves, sculpted in bronzes, looming under shrine ceilings. At the office, the attendant stamps my book — a dragon, of course, snaking through flowing kanji. I buy a golden dragon amulet and pin it to my backpack, then head for the shrines to light my last three incense sticks.

Here, I meet Kuse Naoki, a silver-haired pilgrim in his 70s. “A decade ago, I was diagnosed with cancer and given five years to live,” he says. “I’m still here. For that, I am filled with gratitude.” He attributes his survival to his training as a yamabushi, an ascetic mountain monk who seeks enlightenment through physical exertion and immersion in nature. He turns to reveal the back of his white oizuru tunic, emblazoned with red stamps from every temple he has visited. The white signifies spiritual purity, he says; one day, he will be buried in it. Around his neck, he carries a conch shell, which he says is to dispel evil spirits and honour the temple deities. He lifts it to his lips and blows. Eerie, ululating notes swirl around the temple walls, rising, falling, booming, fading on the breeze.

To me, it sounds like a dragon’s call — and like so many things on the Henro, an echo from another time.