The Mystique on the Ancient Path: Artistic Meditation on the Kumano Nakahechi Route

Deep within the Kii Peninsula, a stone path, soaked in moss and time, winds through the mountains. The Kumano Nakahechi Route—a pilgrimage trail connecting the three Kumano shrines (Hongu, Hayatama, Nachi)—has been a sacred ground for both nobles and commoners since the Heian period. Unlike the grandeur of Spain’s Camino de Santiago or the rugged history of China’s Ancient Tea Horse Road, the Kumano Nakahechi Route embodies a uniquely Japanese aesthetic of "yūgen," creating a spiritual homeland in the Japanese style. Moss-covered stone steps appear faintly through the morning mist, evoking the "mono no aware" atmosphere described in The Tale of Genji. Imperial courtiers once traveled here in palanquins, surrounded by attendants, their waka poems filled with laments on impermanence. Murasaki Shikibu may have paused here, weaving fallen maple leaves and pilgrims’ emotions into eternal words. Sleeves dampened by dew symbolize both the hardships of reality and literary metaphor. The travel hardships recorded by Ki no Tsurayuki in the Tosa Diary resonate with the blisters on today’s hikers’ feet—after a thousand years, the frailty of the human body remains unchanged. Hidden deep in the dense forests of the Nakahechi Route lies the code of Japanese aesthetics. Nachi Waterfall cascades like a white ribbon, forming the sacred scene of the "Three Shrines of the Waterfall." The blue-tiled roofs of Nachi Taisha, with their weathered vermilion paint, harmonize with the surrounding primeval forest. This fusion of human craftsmanship and nature embodies Japan’s unique aesthetic of "sabi"—not a tension of opposition, but a rhythm of coexistence. If the Edo-period haiku master Matsuo Bashō had passed this way, he would surely have composed about Nachi Waterfall: "The sound of the waterfall / has long ceased / yet still lingers in the ear." Nature along the Nakahechi Route has never been an object to conquer but a manifestation of the divine and a place for spiritual practice. The "Oji" shrine ruins along the way resemble stage sets forgotten by time. These former resting places for nobles now remain only as weathered stone pillars and moss-covered bases. Each of the ninety-nine Oji witnessed different eras of faith: the devotion of the Heian period, the turmoil of the medieval age, and the vitality of Edo commoners. In his "Kumano Kodo" suite, Minoru Miki reconstructs the memories of these stones through modern music—the sobbing shakuhachi mimics mountain winds through ruins, while the plucked strings of the shamisen echo the footsteps of past pilgrims. Here, art becomes a medium that transcends time and space. Contemporary hikers carry gear vastly different from that of ancient travelers, yet their reverence for nature remains the same. Haruki Murakami describes his experience walking the Kumano Kodo in the afterword of Norwegian Wood: "On this path, the measure of modern time loses its meaning." In the dense forest where cell signals flicker, people rediscover the rhythm of their bodies and the cadence of their breath. French philosopher Frédéric Gros writes in The Philosophy of Walking: "True walking is a meditative state." Every step on the Nakahechi Route is a gentle rebellion against the modern civilization’s worship of speed. On the night of Nachi’s Fire Festival, the mikoshi (portable shrines) sway like waves among the crowd, sparks flying. This millennia-old ritual magically stitches mythic time with the present moment. Photographer Naruki Nagashima captured a moment during the festival: an elderly man’s deeply wrinkled face illuminated by firelight, his eyes reflecting both worldly joy and transcendent calm. This complex expression may be the core of Kumano faith—a coexistence of joy in life and acceptance of death. The Shikoku forests depicted in Kenzaburō Ōe’s "Burning Green Tree" trilogy share a similar spiritual temperament with Kumano’s sacred mountains: a boundary between this world and the other, an image of the "other world" in the Japanese collective unconscious. As dusk falls, the cedar forests lining the Nakahechi Route turn into silhouettes, and mountain mist slowly rises from the valley floor. At this moment, modern hikers and Heian pilgrims see the same scenery. The "dim and subtle" beauty praised by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki in In Praise of Shadows finds its perfect expression here. The Kumano Nakahechi Route is not merely a hiking trail but a literary corridor through time and space—every moss-covered stone may have been paused upon by the monk Saigyō, every turn might appear in an unknown painter’s folding screen. Walking this path, we are both explorers of geography and travelers through time. The Kumano Nakahechi Route, with its unique yūgen aesthetic, gently dissolves the rigid concepts of time and space in modern minds, making pilgrimage an eternal present experience. When the last stone step is climbed and the path behind is looked back upon, one realizes that the so-called end is merely the beginning of the next cycle—perhaps this is the deepest revelation of Kumano faith.