The Shikoku pilgrimage

This chapter describes the Shikoku pilgrimage and shows how itinerant ascetics and legends helped shape its development. It shows that the idea of unending itinerancy was embedded in the pilgrimage from the outset, articulated in foundation legends and the asceticism of early pilgrims, and facilitated by the circuit-like structure of the route, in which pilgrims on completing the route return to their point of departure and thus simultaneously are at the end and start of the pilgrimage. It provides case studies of famed historical pilgrims who walked multiple times and shows how faith in the holy Buddhist figure Kōbō Daishi, depicted as a perennially wandering pilgrim in Shikoku, played a part in encouraging repetition. It further indicates how local customs, including almsgiving and themes of competition among pilgrims, have further encouraged the culture of multiple performance in Shikoku.