Nyonindō – The Women’s Temple

I arrived at the Nyonindō – the Women’s Temple – several hours later, enjoying the snowy solitude along the way. Although it was cold, it had stopped snowing and I felt quite warm after the steep climb up the Fudō Slope. This is one of my favourite places on Mt Koya because it is especially dedicated to women, and to women ascetic practitioners. It is a humble wooden building, quite nondescript and a little run down. With all the many splendid attractions on this mountaintop – magnificent temples with gorgeous gardens and rare and precious artworks – very few people come to this little bare temple on the edge of the town.

Standing just inside the sliding wooden doors of the temple, I went to light some incense but the old damp packet of matches beside the brazier held only dead matches and a moth. Making a note to pick up a lighter of my own for the journey, I went to find the priest to ask for a light. There was no one in the little office at the side of the altar and so I poked my head through the curtained doorway and called into the interior gloom. “Yes, yes, I’m coming!” a weary voice responded from inside. An old man appeared dressed in monk’s working clothes with an extra layer of a padded sleeveless jacket and a hand-knitted red beanie on his bald head. He seemed a little put out at first, but on seeing a foreign pilgrim standing there he stood stock still as if I were an apparition.

“There aren’t any matches,” I said, holding up the empty box. “Ah, yes, well… okay, yes, um…” as he rummaged in the drawers of the old wooden desk. He produced a battered cigarette lighter and with an apologetic grimace handed it to me. “Sorry, but there are very few visitors here in weather like this and I tend to be a bit forgetful these days. After you’ve said your prayers, why not come inside by the heater and have a cup of tea,” he offered.

Before the 1920s, women were forbidden to enter the sacred town of Koyasan, which was the preserve of male monks and workers only. This temple marked the limit of women’s participation. There was a Nyonindo temple at the end of the each seven pilgrimage paths up the mountain to the townsite. This is the only surviving one, kept as an historical relic to a past era that excluded women from participating in the esoteric practices of Buddhism in this important centre.

Apparently though, this prohibition didn’t stop women from climbing the steep and often dangerous slopes to visit the sacred mountain. Women were certainly ordained as nuns in the Shingon tradition, and many came here to practice ascetic rituals, but weren’t allowed into the town itself. So they would come up the mountain, pray at the Nyonindo and then proceed to circumambulate the eight mountain peaks surrounding the town, stopping at the other Nyonindo temples along the way.

There are also many recorded stories of mothers coming to visit their sons bringing them mended clothing and food. It is also written that the mother of Kobo Daishi, the great founder of the Shingon tradition, used to come here regularly too from her own temple at the base of the mountain. I often wondered what she did when she got here, given that she couldn’t proceed into the main sacred hall of worship in the centre of the town, the great Garan. There are also spicy stories of illicit love affairs and secret marriages and all kinds of other goings-on associated with a large celibate congregation of men!

I always felt however that this was an unjust misogynist prejudice against women, denying them the right to learn and practice in this great sacred centre of esoteric Buddhism. However, the talk that I had with the Nyonindo priest that day, over a cup of steaming hot green tea, changed my mind and showed me just how little I really understood this ancient tradition.