As a destination for travelers, Nikko has been on the map for quite awhile -- 1,222 years to be exact, since 782 AD, when the area's first temple was founded by the priest Shodo. In the 17th century the sacred and lovely place was chosen as the site for a grand Shinto shrine to house the remains of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan for 260 years.
Tokugawa was one of the most successful military men in Japanese history. He brought to an end a hundred years of civil war, united the country under a central authority, and in 1603 became shogun, a title that remained in his family until the 15th shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu returned authority to the Emperor in 1867.
The dynasty he left behind when he died in 1616 was enormously wealthy (Ieyasu's personal fief was the Kanto plain, on which Tokyo now sits), and the royal court at Kyoto declared him a god and avatar (incarnation of a Hindu deity). A man of that stature had to have a fitting resting place, and so the astounding Toshogu temple complex was built at Mount Nikko, nestled deep in the mountains of Tochigi Prefecture.
Ieyasu's remains were brought to Nikko to be interred in 1617 in a magnificent "1,000-samurai" procession, an event reenacted in May every year. In the following years Ieyasu's grandson Iemitsu (the man responsible for Japan's two centuries of isolation), rebuilt and expanded the Toshogu shrines, turning them into the nation's most magnificent and expensive buildings, whose glory he hoped would never be surpassed. He ordered craftsmen from all over the country to gather in Nikko and decorate the shrine, and tens of thousands of woodworkers, metalworkers, sculptors and other craftsmen heeded the call. Some of them stayed behind when the work was done and set up shop, and this was the beginning of the Nikko area's crafts industry, which thrives to this day.
The site of the temple complex was well-chosen: beautiful and serene, verdant and green, with centuries-old cedar trees swooping into the sky and snagging wisps of mist like ghosts in their upper branches. It was already a sacred mountain, and the temple buildings were designed to accentuate the spiritual feeling of the place.
At the entrance is Shinkyo, the sacred red bridge built in 1636 for the exclusive use of the shogun and imperial envoys, at the spot where legend has it the priest Shodo was carried across the Daiyagawa River on the backs of two giant serpents.
The pride and glory of Toshogu is the incredibly ornate Yomei-mon gate, which is a bit of a shock for many visitors -- it looks nothing like the spare and reserved style we associate with Buddhist architecture. Instead, it is bright, colorful and brash with a definite Chinese flavor.
Wandering the site, you're sure to see visitors engaged in a popular activity at Toshogu -- famous-carving-spotting. The most famous is the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" monkeys, carved into the sacred stable to the left as you enter Toshogu. Almost as famous is the Sleeping Cat gracing one of the struts supporting the gate leading to the Ou-sha (the interior shrine where Ieyasu's remains are interred) and carved, legend has it, by the greatest of the Toshogu carvers, Hidari Hingoro. There is also a multitude of tigers, lions, elephants and imaginary beasts, and wooden images of Iemitsu himself. Also scattered about the site are numerous stone lanterns, bells and other decorations, gifts from various daimyo over the years. One bronze lantern bears dozens of scars and gouges, inflicted over the centuries by jumpy sentries who kept mistaking it for an intruder and dinging it with their swords.
To get to Mount Nikko from Tokyo most people go to Asakusa Station and board the Tobu line, which winds through pretty farms, rice fields and then foothills as it approaches Nikko. From Nikko Station you can either take the city bus or walk the 1km to Toshogu.
The actual town of Nikko is a nondescript little burg, largely catering to the tourist trade, but also home to a thriving crafts industry. It basically consists of a single long avenue leading up to the Toshogu temple complex and lined with shops selling antiques and souvenirs, and restaurants, most of which serve "yuba," a kind of soy paper made from the scum that forms on the top of soy milk when it is heated; it is served in soups, fried into soy chips, as yuba "sashimi" over rice, and in dozens of other ways, all of them delicious.
We were amazed by how run-down the town looked; one would expect a more prosperous look, since with 7 million visitors a year coming through town there must some be serious money there. But perhaps they mostly leapfrog the town and head straight for the temples at Mount Nikko and beyond.
Visitors with more time should definitely continue beyond the temple complex and head further on up the road into the mountains of Nikko National Park, one of the most beautiful areas in Japan. Chuzenji-ko is a popular resort lake reached via a scary switchback road full of exciting hairpin turns. On the way is the famous Kegon Falls, 97 meters high and boasting an elevator you can ride to an observation deck at the top. Incidentally, it is said that ghostly faces can be seen in photos of the falling water (it's also a popular suicide spot), but none of the 50 or so shots we took showed a definitive spirit face.
By the way, people who really love crowds should hit Nikko on a weekend; the rest of us would do better during the week, when there is a little more room to move so you can stop and appreciate the stillness and beauty of the place.
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