Yoshino Pilgrim’s Jacket (Ohenro-gi) with Text of the Heart Sutra and Yoshino Pilgrimage Stamps
Not on view
Most of Japan’s approximately 300 pilgrimage circuits include either thirty-three or eight-eight sacred sites—numbers auspicious in Buddhism—and a pilgrim usually visits them in a set order. These journeys are often physically arduous and may require many weeks to complete. When pilgrims arrive at a sacred site, they recite a Buddhist chant or sutra and then may receive the temple’s cinnabar stamp and inscription in a booklet or on their jacket to document the visit. The stamps received by the wearer of this pilgrim’s jacket evince her voyage to sites around Mount Yoshino and depict several of the deities important to this sacred locale, including Zaō Gongen and Fudō Myōō.
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