Thirty-Three Temples, and a Number That Is Doctrine

The Saigoku Kannon pilgrimage is the oldest of the great Japanese temple circuits, and its length is not arbitrary but a count taken directly from scripture.

The route and its number

The pilgrimage links thirty-three temples across the Kansai region, all dedicated to Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion, numbered from Seiganto-ji beside the Nachi waterfall to Kegon-ji in Gifu. The thirty-three is doctrinal: the chapter of the Lotus Sutra on Avalokitesvara describes the bodhisattva taking thirty-three forms to save beings, and the circuit gives each a temple. Pilgrims carry a book stamped and inscribed at each temple, a practice that spread from these routes into Japanese pilgrimage generally.

Legend, and documented growth

The founding is attributed by legend to the monk Tokudo in the eighth century, or to the retired emperor Kazan at the end of the tenth, but documentary evidence for the thirty-three as a fixed set begins only in the twelfth century. It was walked first by monks and aristocrats and became a popular pilgrimage in the medieval and early modern periods, when it also served as the model for the many other thirty-three-temple Kannon circuits that were later laid out across Japan.