Hyakumeizan: images & ink (5)

Illustrated excerpts from One Hundred Mountains of Japan

Image: Tateyama-Bessan, from the Northern Alps series, woodprint by Yoshida Hiroshi (1926)

Ink: On Tateyama, from Nihon Hyakumeizan (One Hundred Mountains of Japan) by Fukada Kyūya (1964):

White-robed supplicants flocked to Tateyama from every corner of Japan. Whatever the merits of prostrating themselves before the Gongen, many of these pilgrims must have rejoiced in the climb itself, on a mountain so varied in its scenery … Mida-ga-hara itself is an upland plateau, so beautiful with its scattering of pools and rich array of alpine flowers that pilgrims from the world below might well have thought themselves in heaven.