Hi! We’re Isa and Jonas. Our plan is to walk along the ancient pilgrimage of Shikoku in the fall of 2021, spring of 2022, whenever we’re allowed into the country ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, spring of 2023.
This site is our digital travel journal.
About The Pilgrimage:
Shikoku is the smallest of the four main islands constituting the country of Japan. Shikoku itself is also divided into four parts, or prefectures, named Tokushima, Kochi, Ehime and Kagawa. Each of these represent a stage in the symbolic spiritual path to enlightenment.
The first prefecture, Tokushima, which houses temples 1 though 23 represents awakening, while Kochi (temples 24-39) being the longest and most sparsely populated stretch of the pilgrimage, promotes austerity and discipline. Once you reach Ehime (40-65) you are ready to attain enlightenment, and finally Kagawa (66-88) represents the entering into nirvana.
Traditionally, o-henro (おへんろ, “pilgrims”), visit the temples in chronological order, walking clock-wise around the island, starting at temple 1 in Tokushima and ending at temple 88 in Kagawa. Some choose to mix it up a little though, especially those that have undertaken the pilgrimage multiple times. On leap-years, for example, it is customary to walk counter-clockwise. However, this is more challenging, as the already limited signage will not be as visible when approached from the “back-side”.
As this is our first time walking we will take the traditional route, starting in Tokushima in late august and hopefully reaching temple 88 by the end of our 3 month visa in late november. For more about us and our reasons for doing this, you can check out this blogpost. Thank you for following along as we walk towards temple 88.
License
All blog posts are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
You are free to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose). But you must however give attribution (appropriate credit to the author and providing a link). For more info on the license, see below link.
If you use any of my material, I would also appreciate a quick note with a link via Twitter.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.