Deep in the hills of Uda, up the Muro river near the border of Nara and Mie, stands Muroji. It carries another name: Nyonin Koya — "the women's Koyasan." From yoinn it is an hour and a quarter by car. A little far, but the quiet you find there is found nowhere else.
The mountain was sacred first
Long before the temple, this mountain was holy ground. Close by, Muro Ryuketsu Shrine enshrines a dragon deity of water; deeper still lies a cave said to be the dwelling of the dragon god. In the Heian period, the court would send envoys here to pray for rain in times of drought — the waters of Muro feed, far downstream, the sources of the Kizu and Yodo rivers.
Even Muroji's beginnings are bound to this cave. In the late Nara period, monks are said to have prayed at the Muro dragon-cave for the recovery of the prince who would become Emperor Kanmu, and on that hallowed ground a temple in time arose. The sacredness of the mountain came first; the Buddhist temple was laid over it.
Why "the women's Koyasan"
For centuries, Koyasan did not allow women to enter — it was a mountain closed to them. In that age, Muroji welcomed women to pray. And so it became known as Nyonin Koya. Women who could not climb Koyasan came instead to this mountain. In the Edo period, Keishoin — mother of the fifth Tokugawa shogun — restored the temple. A place, in many ways, held up and protected by women.
The National-Treasure pagoda
Cross the drum bridge, climb the stone steps, and a five-storey pagoda appears among the trees. It is the oldest and smallest outdoor five-storey pagoda in Japan — about sixteen metres tall, built in the early Heian period, some twelve hundred years ago, and designated a National Treasure.
Small, but graceful. In 1998, a typhoon toppled a great cedar that struck the pagoda and badly damaged it. Over two years it was restored, and now it stands quietly once more — you find yourself thinking of the suppleness of a tower that has survived twelve centuries.
A temple, one with the mountain
Muroji does not fight the mountain. Following the slope, the Golden Hall (also a National Treasure), the main hall, the pagoda and the inner sanctuary are linked by stone steps. Within the halls, a remarkable body of Heian-era Buddhist statues — some of them National Treasures — sits in silence. The climb to the inner sanctuary is steep; by the time your breath is short, the line between mountain and temple has begun to blur.
Muroji in autumn
In spring, rhododendrons line the approach; in autumn, the whole mountain turns. Because the cold comes early to these hills, Muroji is among the first places in Yamato to colour — the peak falls from mid-November into early December. The path from the drum bridge to the main hall glows scarlet and gold, and the pagoda framed by maples is the temple's defining sight. In season there are evening illuminations too: a quieter, deeper red than the day.
As a base — an hour and a quarter from Gojo
Muroji is an hour and a quarter by car from yoinn, in Gojo — out in the eastern reaches of Uda, a little of a journey. But the deep-mountain quiet, so unlike the temples crowded with tour buses, lies only at the end of that distance. The women's Koyasan by day, and by night, a quiet machiya — a day, unhurried, to meet the autumn of a mountain temple.
For a sweep of southern Nara in autumn, see also The Other Nara.