Yasui Kompiragū Shrine in Kyoto is defined by a massive, oval-shaped stone monument that stands covered in thousands of small, white paper slips. Known as the Enkiri-Enmusubi Ishi, this stone features a narrow hole at its center through…
Rokuhara Ghosts and Underworld Walk
This walk follows the eerie supernatural history of Kyoto's historic Rokuhara district, where the boundary between our world and the afterlife was once paper-thin. You will visit a temple housing underworld judges, peer at a gateway to the land of the dead, and stand beneath a castle ceiling made from blood-stained floorboards.
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1. Yasui Kompiragū Shrine
2. Rokudō Chinnō-ji Temple
Rokudō Chinnō-ji Temple is marked by a distinctive vermilion gate and white earthen walls, standing near what was historically the entrance to Toribeno, a site for funeral rites in the Heian period. Because of this location, the temple…
3. Crossroads of the Six Paths
The Crossroads of the Six Paths, known in Japanese as Rokudo no Tsuji, marks an ancient boundary in the Higashiyama district. For centuries, this intersection served as the gateway to Toribeno, one of Kyoto’s primary cremation and burial…
4. Saifukuji
Saifukuji temple sits at the entrance to what was historically one of Kyoto’s primary burial grounds, Toribeno. The site is marked by a distinctive flower ceiling, where sixty-four panels are painted with images of irises, gerberas, and…
5. Minatoya Yurei Kosodateame Honpo
Minatoya Yurei Kosodateame Honpo is a small, traditional shop identified by its wooden candy boxes and a sign noting its role in a local legend. Founded in fifteen ninety-nine, it has been operated by the same family for twenty…
6. Rokuharamitsuji Temple
Rokuharamitsuji Temple is marked by its striking vermillion-painted main hall, a structure that dates back to thirteen sixty-three. Founded in nine hundred fifty-one by the monk Kuya, it originally served as a place of refuge and prayer…
7. Mimizuka
Mimizuka is a grassy, mound-shaped monument topped with a five-layered stone pagoda in Kyoto's Higashiyama district. Built in fifteen ninety-seven by the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi, it commemorates his failed invasions of the Korean…
8. Yōgen-in Temple
Yogen-in Temple is marked by the distinctive, haunting presence of its ceiling panels, which are formed from the original floorboards of Fushimi Castle. Established in fifteen ninety-four by Yodo-dono to honor her father, Nagamasa Asai,…