A Journey for Preparing for Death over 1300 Years～The Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage of thirty-three Buddhist temples throughout the Kansai region of Japan～

The final preparations one makes for their death aren’t simply about organizing the bits and pieces of your life. To Japanese people, this process is about pondering over just how much of a fulfilling life they were able to lead. Kindness, diligence and consideration, these are the teachings of the Buddhist deity of compassion, Kannon, who has been intimate to the Japanese people. The impetus for Kannon’s pilgrimage around the 33 temples in the Kinki area was the spiritual richness that has resided within the hearts of Japanese people since time immemorial.
Priest Tokudo, who founded Hasedera temple in Nara, one day became ill and fell into a state of apparent death, it was during this time that the judge of the afterlife Enma-daiō, the overlord of hell in Japanese Buddhist mythology, is said to have tasked him with spreading the blessing of the 33 temples in the Kinki area, the sacred grounds of Kannon, and bestowed upon him 33 seals. These 33 seals, which were proof of his promise to Enma, were brought one each to all of the 33 temples. Owing to this story, it is now understood that to carry out a pilgrimage to these locations is to personally come into contact with the compassion of Kannon and to amend one’s own behavior from within, which in turn becomes your passport to a rebirth in paradise. This is what began the pilgrimages to the 33 temples in the Kinki region, and it’s also where the act of using seals to give ink stamps to the visitors of shrines and temples began.