According to an article in the Japan Today, the holy grounds and pilgrimage path in the Kii mountains are included to the UN's World Heritage sites. There is a good introduction about Kii mountains in this site.
Posted by hiroko at July 2, 2004 10:51 AM | TrackBackIt's great to hear that the site was internationally recognized as an important place. I only had been once in Koyasan site but I felt it as very sacred place. You may find differeces in the air, sound of the wind and the sun light when you get to there. You may also feel that the mountain itself as a living entity.
Words cannot explain what it is, however, what I felt was those temples and shrines are just entrance gates or telescopes to look into or terminals to send your messages. But the most important stuff is not sitting inside of those pagodas. It is outside sitting behind: the mountain itself rooted to the earth.
You may also find walking paths are designed as curvy to route around stupas to reach to pagodas behind. I saw these stupas blocking the evil coming into pagodas. It gave me an interesting thought: the shortcut may be a wrong way.