Mount Yoshino

Mount Yoshino is an eight-kilometre ridge in Yamato Province running south from the Yoshino River into the Ōmine range, its slopes studded with the temples and shrines of the Kinpusen cult. In the seventh century the ascetic En no Gyōja opened the mountain and founded Kinpusen-ji, seat of Zaō Gongen and headquarters of Kinpusen Shugendō, and blazed the trail linking Yoshino with the Kumano shrines of Kii.

Cherry wood served to carve images of Zaō Gongen, and believers donated saplings: from the Heian period four groves of a thousand trees clothed the ridge.

Prince Ōama watched for omens at the Yoshino palace before seizing the throne in the Jinshin War of 672. In 1336 the dispossessed Southern Court made Yoshino its mountain capital, and four of its emperors kept court among the temples until the rival courts were reunited in 1392.