S P O T ／ SPOT-159

Suzutateyama Wakamatsu-dera Temple — Mukasari Ema Hall

鈴立山若松寺 ムカサリ絵馬堂すずたてさんわかまつでら むかさりえまどう

This ancient Tendai sect temple, traditionally said to have been founded by the monk Gyoki in 708 (Wado 1), is known throughout the region as a center of marriage-related worship — celebrated in a proverb as 'the Izumo of the West, the Wakamatsu of the East.' The temple's votive picture hall houses more than 1,300 mukasari ema — painted votive tablets rooted in the East Asian custom of ghost marriage — making it the largest such collection in Japan. 'Mukasari' is a Yamagata dialect word for a wedding ceremony; the practice involves relatives commissioning painted scenes of a deceased unmarried person in an imaginary wedding ceremony, then presenting the painting to the temple as a memorial offering. The custom, which originated in the Murayama district in the late Meiji period, continues to this day, with offerings arriving from across Japan. The Kannon-do (Kannondo), built in the late Muromachi period, is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property and serves as the first sacred site on the Mogami Thirty-Three Kannon Pilgrimage.