Kumano Sanzan

The Kumano Sanzan are the three great shrines of the Kii peninsula, Hongū, Hayatama and Nachi, whose kami were worshipped together as the Kumano Gongen, buddhas and native gods fused into one faith. The Nachi waterfall drew hermits of Shugendō.

The first imperial pilgrimage was made by Emperor Uda in 908, and over the next 374 years emperors and retired emperors came ninety-four times. Pilgrims followed the Kumano Kodō trails, resting at the ninety-nine Oji shrines built between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, seeking healing and rebirth in this world and the next.

In the Muromachi period the flow of samurai and peasants became so constant it was called the ant pilgrimage. Under the Tokugawa it joined the Ise pilgrimage as a mass devotion, while more than three thousand branch shrines carried the cult across Japan.