Stone Hut, Jizo Pond, and Sanskrit Pond 石室と地蔵ヶ池・梵字ヶ池

Official explanation

The summer climbing trail was completed in 1920. The following year, the stone hut was built by volunteers as an emergency shelter. Two ponds are located to the left behind the hut. The upper one is Jizogaike Pond, and the lower one Bonjigaike Pond or the Sanskrit Pond. In the past an annual ritual, known as misenzenjo, was performed here. Two senior monks and three guides climbed up to the ponds bringing copies of sutras in metal cylinders. They picked bunches of mugwort and Japanese dwarf yew, and collected water from the two ponds with akaoke, special pails used for water offerings. The sacred water was brought down and offered to the Buddha, and the mugwort distributed to believers as a medicinal herb. In the late nineteenth century, the Buddhist name misenzenjo was changed to the Shinto name mohitori-shinji. The ceremony is still carried out from the evening of July 14th to the early morning of the 15th.

出典: 地域観光資源の多言語解説文データベース（観光庁） — www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db. この英語解説文は観光庁の地域観光資源の多言語解説整備支援事業で作成しました。
Source: Japan Tourism Agency, Multilingual Explanation Database. This English text was produced by the Japan Tourism Agency's multilingual explanation project and is shown unedited. Opening hours and services may have changed since it was written.