S P O T ／ SPOT-089

Dainichibō (Mummified Saint Shinnyokai-Shōnin)

湯殿山総本寺 瀧水寺大日坊 即身仏真如海上人ゆどのさんそうほんじ りゅうすいじだいにちぼう そくしんぶつしんにょかいしょうにん

In the snow country of the Shōnai region, at the foot of the sacred Mount Yudono, the temple of Dainichibō has cared for the same congregation for over a thousand years — and at the center of its main hall sits its most famous member, the mummified body of the monk Shinnyokai-Shōnin, who entered sokushinbutsu ('living Buddhahood') in 1783 at the age of 96. The path that led him to this state is among the most extreme ascetic traditions in world religion: years of mokujikigyō (a diet of bark, roots, nuts, and pine needles, eliminating all grains) progressively dehydrated his body in life; long stretches of solitary meditation hollowed his metabolism; finally, while still alive, he was sealed underground in a stone chamber, breathing through a bamboo tube and chanting sutras until breath stopped. Three years later, his preserved body was disinterred and enshrined as a sokushinbutsu. He has been receiving visitors ever since. The temple treats him not as a curiosity but as a living priest still performing the same intercessory function he intended in 1783, and visitors are asked to behave as worshippers, not spectators. He is one of roughly sixteen sokushinbutsu still extant, the great majority of them in this small region of Yamagata.