It is still more than 20 Km walk from WEEK Kamiyama to No.13 Dainichi-ji. I could enjoy beautiful scenery in local small villages and the mountains during walking.

Sometimes the henro route is split to different routes (and of course, it will merge again). Between each temples, there’re sometimes “Bangai-reijyo (番外霊場)” which also have strong connection to Kobo-Daishi, so you might want to visit. Or you may want to visit next temple right way. I think this is one of the reason for this split. This time, I selected the shortest path (It’s about 15 Km to the next junction and more than 3 Km shorter than other routes).

A gentleman approached and talked to me “Did you walk down from No.12 Shozan-ji, and if so it would take more than 3 hours to come here. Keep up going!”. Even though it is said that I’m walking together with Kobo-Daishi in this pilgrimage, it’s definitely appreciated to have such casual conversation.

No.13 Dainichi-ji is located at the opposite side of Ichinomiya shrine across the way and this shrine seems to be larger than No.13 Dainichi-ji. I learned later that No.13 Dainichi-ji is “Betto-ji temple” which was attached to Ichinomiya Shrine. I feel it’s bit strange that temple and shrine stands each other. It happens because the syncretization of Shinto and Buddhism began during the Nara Period and it led to Betto-ji temples being constructed within Shinto shrines.

It is actually not so easy to concentrate to do the routine when there’re so many pilgrims… So I had to do it quick this time 🙁