Nikkō Tōshō-gū

Listen first. Wind moves through the tops of the cedars. Gravel crunches under hundreds of feet. Somewhere a bell rings once and fades. The air here is cool and damp, and it smells of wet bark and moss. Now look up the path. Through the dark trunks, something flashes gold, red, and black. That is Nikkō Tōshō-gū, a shrine built to hold a ruler who became a god. Let us walk toward it slowly.

The man at the centre of this place is Tokugawa Ieyasu. In the early seventeenth century, he ended more than a century of civil war in Japan. He founded the Tokugawa shogunate, a military government that ruled the country for over two hundred and fifty years. When Ieyasu died in 1616, he asked to be enshrined here in Nikkō. After death, he received a divine title, Tōshō Daigongen. In English, that means roughly the great incarnation who shines over the east.

The first shrine here was modest. What you see today belongs mostly to his grandson, Tokugawa Iemitsu. In the 1630s, Iemitsu ordered a huge reconstruction. Thousands of carpenters, carvers, painters, and lacquer workers came to these mountains. The work was finished in 1636, to mark the twentieth anniversary of Ieyasu's death. This was not only devotion. It was also a message. Every feudal lord who came here saw the wealth and power of the Tokugawa family, written in gold.

As you climb, notice the great stone torii gate, the kind of gateway that marks the entrance to Shinto sacred ground. Nearby, a five-storey pagoda rises in red and green. A pagoda is a Buddhist tower, and that detail is your first surprise. This shrine mixes Shinto and Buddhism freely. For centuries in Japan, the two traditions were woven together. Later reforms tried to separate them. Here, you can still see the older, mixed world in one place.

Now find a plain wooden building on your left, the sacred stable. Horses were once kept here for the gods. Look under the eaves. You will see carved monkeys, and among them, the famous three. One covers its eyes, one its ears, one its mouth. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Many visitors miss the rest of the story. The panels run along the building and follow monkeys through a whole life, from birth to parenthood.

Why monkeys at a stable? In old Japanese belief, monkeys were thought to protect horses from illness. So the carvings had a practical role as well as a moral one. And the stable itself is unusual here. It is one of the few buildings left in plain, unpainted wood. Keep it in mind. In a few minutes, you will be surrounded by colour, and this quiet building will feel very far away.

Now climb the steps toward the Yōmeimon, the great gate. It is covered with more than five hundred carvings. There are dragons and mythical lions, Chinese sages, children at play, cranes, and flowers. Most of it is painted and gilded. People gave this gate a nickname, Higurashi-no-mon. It means the gate of the setting sun. The idea is simple. You could stand and look at it all day, and not notice the sun going down.

Here is a second surprise. Legend has it that one of the gate's white pillars was deliberately carved upside down. The pattern on it runs the wrong way. Locals say the builders did this on purpose. A perfect building, the story goes, would invite bad luck, because only the gods are perfect. Whether the tale is true or not, look carefully at the pillars. Try to find the one that does not match its neighbours.

The gate looks fresh for a reason. Tōshō-gū is restored again and again, and the Yōmeimon went through a long restoration in recent years. Craftspeople still use traditional lacquer, mineral pigments, and gold leaf. This is part of the Japanese approach to heritage. A building stays alive because skills are passed on and the work is repeated. The shrine is part of the Shrines and Temples of Nikkō, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999.

Beyond the gate stands the Karamon, a smaller gate in brilliant white. Behind it is the main hall, where prayers are offered. Now head toward the path on the right side, to a corridor leading to the inner shrine. Above a doorway, look for a small carved cat, curled up and asleep. This is the Nemuri-neko, the sleeping cat. Tradition says it was carved by Hidari Jingorō, a master carver who may be partly a legend himself.

Step through and look at the back of the same panel. There are sparrows, playing freely. A cat that sleeps next to sparrows means the birds are safe. Many people read this as a picture of peace, the long peace the Tokugawa brought to Japan. Past the cat, a long stone stairway climbs through the cedars. It leads to the Okusha, the inner sanctuary, and to the tomb of Ieyasu himself. The climb is steep, so take your time.

One more sound before you leave. In the Yakushidō hall, a large dragon is painted on the ceiling. It is called the crying dragon. A priest claps two blocks of wood below its head. The sound rings back with a long, trembling echo, like a cry. Clap somewhere else in the hall, and nothing special happens. The hall burned in 1961 and was rebuilt, and the dragon was repainted. The sound, however, still works.

There is an old Japanese saying. Do not say "splendid" until you have seen Nikkō. Now stand still for a moment. Look at the gold against the dark cedars. Listen to the wind high in the branches, and to the voices on the steps below. As you walk back down, turn once and look over your shoulder. The trees close in again, and the gold disappears into the green, the way it has for nearly four centuries.