Shrines & Temples of Ushimado

The tiny seaside town of Ushimado in south-west Japan is famous for its beautiful sea and verdant islands. It is also a heritage town with glimpses of the old Japan of wooden houses and traditional shrines and temples.

In Ushimado you can see three small islands close to each other. At low tide you can walk from one island to the next and this passage is called the Kuroshima Venus road. You can admire those 3 islands in the image above.

Ushimado and the legend of Ushi-oni

There is a legend of a monster called Ushi-oni, who looked like a cow. Empress Jingu came here disguised as a man after her husband died. She met the monster and killed it. Different parts of Ushi-oni fell in the sea around Ushimado forming the different islands. The original name of Ushimado was Ushimaro - Ushi (cow) + Maro (killed). This legend is celebrated in the Ushimado shrine in the city.

During the Edo Period (1603-1868), Ushimado was a ship-building town and was used as a resting point by Korean Royals on their way to Edo.

Reaching Ushimado

Ushimado comes under Setouchi in the Okayama prefacture. It is about 30 km from Okayama. You can take an Ako line train from Okayama, get down at Saidaiji or Osafune and then take a Ryobi bus to Ushimado.

At Ushimado, I stayed at hotel Limani. Looking out at the beautiful islands and the sea was an incredible wake-up experience, as you can see from the image below.

Ushimado Lighthouse

The lighthouse of Ushimado, is a traditional wood tower with a pyramidal roof and it is mounted on a square stone pedestal (image below). In the image below, you can see as it appears from the sea.

HonRenJi Buddhist Temple

One early morning I explored the main street of Ushimado called Shiomachi Karakoto. The Kaiyu museum was closed but just behind it, I found an ancient temple - Honrenji. It was built for welcoming the Korean visitors and is considered a cultural heritage site.

A Koromon (gate) marked the entrance of the temple. The main entrance led to a big wooden building, probably the Butsu-do, the Buddha hall.

Majority of temple structures were in wood. The buildings had huge curved roofs, almost as big as the rooms below. To the right, stairs led to a terrace overlooking the sea with some more temples.

There was a 3-storied Daito (large pagoda) on the terrace close to the edge overlooking the sea. Each part was made in rectangular form with wooden fenced balustrades. There was a mokoshi (skirt-shaped) roof on the lower two levels and a pyramidal roof on the top floor.

Next to the Daito, there was a massive bell tower with a stone and a rectangular wooden base, on which which a big copper bell was mounted, covered by a beautiful curved roof.

Behind and above the temple there was a cemetery area. Being early morning it was very quiet and peaceful. The different temple buildings were closed, still I really enjoyed this visit.

Tenjin Shrine and Tenjinyama Tumulus

This is a Shinto shrine at the top of the hill above HonRenJi temple. It is dedicated to Tenjin, the god of scholarship.

Tenjin was a 9th century poet called Sugawara no Michizane, an important official in the imperial court of Emperor Uda. After the death of the emperor, he was exiled and died as a lonely man. Seventy years after his death, Michizane was deified and became Tenjin. His shrines were built in different parts of Japan. The legend says that he had visited Ushimado during exile and cried on the top of this hillock.

Long stairs along with a Koromon gate led to the shrine. The main temple was closed. On the left, there were Inari shrines marked by vermilion coloured Torii gates. One Inari shrine was full of Kitsune (white foxes), the messengers to the god Inari. Inari gods are linked with rice-crop and fertility. Kitsune were shown with their right front paw raised up to protect an urn, and each had a golden round tablet in the mouth.

At the bottom of the hill, there was a tall brick tower covered with creepers in an ancient looking courtyard. I could not find out the significance of this tower. Nearby there was a more recent iron tower with a weather-wane.

Kompira-Gu Kou Shrine

This was another Shinto shrine at the top of a hillock. Kompira-gu is a god of the sailors. Kompira shrines were originally made by Shugendo sect in Kotohira mountains of the Kagawa prefacture and are also called Kotohira-gu. Outside its closed latticed doors there were banners of rope and straw.

The views of the sea, islands and surrounding Ushimado were beautiful from this shrine.

Sai Ichi Inari

This Inari shrine was on the main street of Ushimado, behind a house, where a row of vermilion Torii led to small shrine. Praying to this Inari was supposed to grant you a long and happy life. A holy person from Fushimi Inari in Kyoto had established this shrine in Ushimado.

A Buddhist shrine and the cemetery

One evening while walking to the back of the hill of the Tenjin shrine, I came across another Buddhist shrine linked to a cemetery. This shrine had seven carved stones, all wrapped in red wool-covers. The central stone had a bigger statue of Buddha. Behind the Buddha stones, there were seven round stones.

This shrine was close to a Buddhist cemetery with tombs scattered along the hill at different levels.

Conclusions

Today most cities of Japan look very European. However, Ushimodo has still many places where you can see the old Japan and its traditions. For example, the image below shows an old well of Ushimado and a couple of shrines close to it.

I want to conclude with another image from Limani hotel where I stayed. This image shows the hotel swimming pool with the sea just beyond it.

I was in Ushimado for a meeting on conservation of history of leprosy, invited by the Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation.

I could not visit many tourist places in Ushimado such as the Kaiyu cultural museum, Maejima island (Green island) and the Olive Gardens. However, this visit gave me an opportunity to see and appreciate the traditional Japanese houses and some of their traditional temples and shrines. At the same time, it was a beautiful place with incredible sunsets.

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Discovering Mumbai: Kanheri Caves

Few persons visiting India’s commercial capital Mumbai have heard of the Kanheri caves. Even less seem to have visited it. This post is about this forgotten jewel of Mumbai that deserves to be seen.

Kanheri caves are rock-cut Buddhist caves in the Borivali suburb of Mumbai. References to king Yajna Satakarni in one of the cave inscriptions shows that its oldest parts date back to at least 2nd century BCE. It was one of the most prosperous Buddhist monk communities, functioning actively for a period of more than a thousand years.

Modern Mumbai is composed of 7 islands that were merged together through land reclamation in the 19th century. Before the merger, Borivali and the Kanheri caves were part of the Salsette island.

Rock-cut Caves in India

Carving rocky hills to create caves for human dwellings in India started about 2,500 years ago. One of the oldest rock-cut caves in India are at Udaygiri near Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, dating back to 5 century BCE. Among the twenty caves of Udaygiri, 1 is dedicated to Jainism while the remaining 19 caves are dedicated to Hindu Gods. Some other rock-cut caves, such as the Pandava Caves in Panchmarhi, also seem to be equally old.

Other caves in India older than the rock-cut caves, such as the prehistoric Bhimbetaka caves near Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), are natural caves.

The rock-cut caves were carved mainly for Buddhist and Jainist monks. They were built over periods of centuries. On the other hand, rock-cut structures linked with Hinduism are usually temples, such as the temple complex in Mahabalipuram in eastern coast of south India dating back to about 700 BCE. This could have been because Hinduism mostly has individuals or small groups in search of God and spirituality, while it lacks centralised monastic orders and therefore, did not need a large number of caves in one place for the monks.

Many Hindu temples contain “Garbhgriha” (Womb caves) where the deities are placed. In many old temples, like in the Kamakhaya temple in Guwahati (Assam), such Garbhgrihas are rock-cut structures. Though the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was created in 1861 under the British colonial rule, it has not been able to carry out precise dating of most of these structures. Thus, usually the information available regarding these ancient rock-cut caves is based only on myths and popular stories.

Buddhist Caves in Maharashtra, India

The tradition of carving out caves in rocks and hills for creating Buddhist monasteries probably started after the death of Gautam Buddha. Except for the Saspol caves in Kashmir, all the other well-known Buddhist cut-rock caves are located in the state of Maharashtra in central-west part of India. These include the famous Ajanta and Ellora caves from 3rd century BCE.

A total of 27 significant Buddhist caves have been identified in Maharashtra.  Five of these caves are in Mumbai – Elephanta (Gharapuri), Jogeshwari, Mahakali, Mandapeshwar and Kanheri; while another 8 caves are close to Mumbai, going towards Lonavla and Pune - Bhaja, Karla, Bedse, Ghorawadi, Lenyadri, Shelarwadi and Shirwal.

The presence of these caves in Maharashtra indicates that from 5th century BCE till about early medieval times, there were a lot of flourishing communities of Buddhist monks in this part of India. These seemed to have close relationships with the seafaring trading communities.

Why did rock-cut Buddhist monasteries remain circumscribed only to central-western parts of India? Why there were no similar Buddhist monasteries in other parts of India? Was it linked to the coastal trade routes from the west coast of India? Was it a geological issue that other parts did not have rocks suitable for making caves? Was it because the artisans involved in making the caves were concentrated only in this part of India? Perhaps some experts can answer this question.

Reaching Kanheri Caves

Kanheri Caves can be reached easily through the public transport of Mumbai. Borivali local train station is just a couple of kilometres away. From the train station, a 20 minutes walk or frequent buses bring you to the entrance of Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), the wild-life park of Mumbai. A shuttle bus service connects the entrance gate to the Kanheri caves, around 6 km away inside SGNP.

If you come with your own vehicle you have to pay the vehicle entry fee at the entrance gate while the tickets for entering the Kanheri caves are sold near the caves-entrance.

Kanheri Caves

The name Kanheri comes from two words - Kanha or Krishna (Black) and Giri (mountain). The name refers to Kanha hill with the dark coloured basaltic rocks common in this area. Basaltic rocks are formed from volcanic lava. The darker coarse grain basaltic rock, as found in Kanheri, is also called Gabbro or the Black Granite.

There are 109 rock-cut caves in Kanheri. The earliest caves date back to 2nd century BCE while the most recent caves are from 1000 CE. It seems that these caves were part of a thriving learning centre, where student monks came to study the teachings of Buddha. It was also used as a resting and storage point for the seafaring traders.

Most of these caves were used as living rooms for individuals. These are mostly small caves without any specific adornments and have a rock platform to be used for sitting and sleeping. The area also has some bigger halls closer to the entrance, which were used for prayers and meetings.

The first cave close to the entrance has pillars similar to those found at Elephanta. However, this two storied cave was never completed, probably due to some defect in the rock structure. (Image below)

The second cave is divided into three parts, each hosting a stupa. Each of these stupas is accompanied by rock-cut sculptures of Buddha, almost all of them in the Vyakhyana mudra. For example, the sculpture near the first stupa has a sitting Buddha in Vyakhana mudra, holding a lotus and with two lions at his feet. Two guards stand behind him along with two flying gandharvas. One of the walls has a large beautiful statue of Avalokiteshwara form of Buddha. (a part of Cave 2 in the image below)

The third cave from the entrance is the most beautiful. It has an entrance gate with guard-sculptures.

Entrance leads to a courtyard and then a covered anteroom with giant Buddha statues on the two side walls.

The anteroom walls also have sculptures of some couples, who probably donated money for the construction of this temple. These were rich merchants of the area and thus, these sculptures give an idea of local society of that period. Both men and women seem to be given equal importance and both are wearing loin clothes and jewellery while upper parts of their bodies are uncovered. They all wear a head-gear and they have something on their shoulders connected to their head-gear, perhaps for holding a clothe covering their backs? They are not wearing any kind of footwear. (image below)

The main hall of the cave temple is spacious - 26 metres long, 12 metres wide and 15 metres high, with pillars on the side walls. The roof of the hall shows the signs of the wooden rafters, which covered it originally. A 5 metres high stupa stands closer to the deep end of the hall. An inscription found in this hall explains that the hall was built in 2nd century BCE.

Another important cave is cave 11, located at a higher level above the entrance caves. It is known as Darbar cave. Around 20 metres wide and 8 metres deep, it has rows of low rock-benches.

Some persons believe that this was a teaching area and thus consider Kanheri as a learning centre. Others think that it was a meeting room, perhaps used for a Buddhist council meeting. It has a covered verandah with 8 pillars and two cisterns on the sides. 

When I saw it, I thought that it resembled a hostel mess. But it also has some beautiful sculptures on its walls, and I think that an eating room was unlikely to host beautiful sculptures. So I don't know if it could have been an eating place, with kitchens and store rooms around the main hall and the two water cisterns. To confirm it we need to check if there are signs of fires in the rooms used as kitchens.

One of the Buddha sculpture has Buddha shown sitting with his feet on the ground - I had never seen a similar statue of Buddha before. (In the image below)

Recently (January 2016) another group of 7 caves was discovered not far from the Kanheri complex in the forest surrounding it. Further excavations of this area is awaited to understand the role of these caves.

Inscriptions in Kanheri Caves

There are more than 70 inscriptions in Kanheri. Three scripts have been used in these inscriptions – Brahmi, Devnagari and Pahlavi. The inscriptions provide information about local rulers such as Vashishtiputra Satakarni, about the supervisors, artisans and artists who worked here, and general information such as a list of local birds. Most common inscriptions are about the gifts of caves and cisterns by the rich merchants of nearby towns such as Sopara and Kalyan.

One of the caves has an inscription about a “Tooth cave”. It is thought that this cave temporarily hosted a tooth, a relic of Buddha, which was later placed in a big stupa near the great temple hall. More recent excavations of this stupa did not show any tooth, though a brass plate was found. It is thought that the tooth was removed from the stupa in some earlier excavations. It is not clear if this tooth relic was in any way related to the famous tooth relic in a stupa in Sri Lanka. According to some experts, the brass plate found in Kanheri refers to 494-95 BCE and thus propose it as the oldest rock-cut Buddhist caves in India.

The image below shows one of the epigraphs near the Darbar hall (cave 11). Close to the epigraph is a bass-relief showing a strange figure which reminded me of the bull horns. I wondered if it was linked to Pashupati Nath (Shiva) worship or if it could be linked to the Pashupati seals found in Indus valley (image below).

Water Collection and Conservation Systems of Kanheri

A water stream flows between the northern and southern hills of Kanheri. One of the inscription mentions the construction of a dam for the collection of water. However, the caves are on the higher parts of the southern hill and thus going down to collect water from the stream must have been difficult. For this reason, as well to answer the water needs of a large number of persons, a detailed water collection and conservation system was designed in Kanheri including a network of canals and cisterns, as shown in the image below.

I visited Kanheri around the end of the dry season and was surprised to find that many cisterns of the monastery were full of water. This traditional knowledge of water collection and conservation seems to have been lost from many rural communities of India which face regular droughts and water-shortages.

Some Specific Things to See in Kanheri

There were a few other things in Kanheri caves which struck me as interesting. These included the numerous steps carved in the rocks for going from one place to another. Some of these were very long. These seemed like snakes winding on the rock surfaces.

Another curious find were small holes in the surface of rocks on the top of the hills, as shown in the image below. When I saw them I thought that they were holes above the cisterns for a ritual use similar to the stepwell of Santa Cristina in Sardinia island of Italy. However on closer look, these were not deep holes and were closed at the bottom. I wondered if these holes were made for fixing the bamboo umbrella stands to avoid the sun or may be for fixing poles for hanging out the washed clothes for drying.

Views of the Borivali high rise buildings from the top of the hills, behind the dense forests surrounding the Kanheri rock caves, were beautiful.

Conclusions

I have been to the more famous Elephanta caves on an island near the Gateway of India. It has a beautiful Trimurti scultpure. However, Elephanta does not have the rugged beauty of Kanheri. I was really surprised by this visit because I was not expecting to see such a vast and imposing structure with such beautiful sculptures.

I have not yet visited the other three rock-cut Buddhist caves in Mumbai and and if they are half as beautiful as Kanheri, it will be worthwhile to go and look for them. 

The large number of caves in and around modern Mumbai also means that this area was already inhabited many centuries before the British came and developed the city of Bombay in the 19th century.

If you live in or are only visiting Mumbai and are interested in the rich Indian cultural heritage, do visit Kanheri.

Acknowledgements

I found some useful archaeological information about the caves in an article by Saurabh on the Indian History and Architecture website.

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