Nikkō (日光) is a mountain town north of Tokyo where one of Japan's most lavish shrine complexes sits among towering cedars, waterfalls, and lakes. It is a place of deliberate contrast: the restrained, weathered elegance usually associated with Japanese religious architecture gives way here to gold, colour, and dense carving: the mausoleum of the man who unified the country.
The shrine of the shogun
Nikkō's fame rests on Tōshō-gū (東照宮), the shrine built to enshrine Tokugawa Ieyasu, the warlord who ended a century of civil war, founded the shogunate that ruled Japan for over 250 years, and was deified after his death as a guardian spirit of the nation. His grandson rebuilt the shrine in the 1630s on an overwhelming scale, covering it in gold leaf and thousands of carvings. Among them are two of the most famous images in Japan: the three wise monkeys ("see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil"), carved above the sacred stable, and the sleeping cat, nemuri-neko. The lavishness was a deliberate statement of Tokugawa power.
Mountains, cedars, and water
Nikkō is also a landscape. The approach passes along an avenue of giant cryptomeria (sugi namiki, 杉並木), cedars planted in the 17th century that still line the old roads for kilometres. Above the town, the mountains open onto Lake Chūzenji and the thundering Kegon Falls, nearly a hundred metres high, especially dramatic in autumn when the slopes turn red and gold. An old saying, "Nikkō o minai uchi wa 'kekkō' to iu na," "don't say 'splendid' until you've seen Nikkō," plays on words to boast of its beauty.
Words & idioms to take away
Idioms & proverbs to carry away
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東照宮 (Tōshō-gū): "shrine of the Eastern Light," the name given to Ieyasu's deified spirit; the head shrine is at Nikkō, with branch Tōshō-gū across Japan.
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杉並木 (sugi namiki): an "avenue of cedars," the rows of tall cryptomeria planted along the approach roads to Nikkō, a living monument in their own right.