Tateyama in Etchü

Catalog note / 解説

Mountains are sacred, as places to which the kami (gods) are considered to descend and dwell, and as places where the spirits of the ancestors exist. Sacred mountains have been known in Japan from ancient time. Kami resides. Some folk beliefs regard mountains as the dwelling place of the spirits of the ancestors, viewing these spirits and the mountain kami (yama no kami ) as identical. With the rise of Shugendö (an old Japanese way of studying the relationship between Man and Nature), a great number of mountains, such as Ontake, Fuji, Ishizuchi, Daisen, Tateyama and Hiko, came to be venerated as sacred peaks. These mountains are particularly rugged, tall, and/or beautiful, and many are acti…