Yudono-san Goshintai Legend

The Yudono-san goshintai legend records the discipline of silence around the principal object of worship at the Yudono-san inner sanctuary, one of the three Dewa Sanzan (Dewa Three Mountains) sites in Tsuruoka, Yamagata. Yudono-san is positioned as the place of 'death and rebirth' within the three-mountain system, alongside Gassan and Haguro-san; the natural rock-form from which hot spring water flows is enshrined as the principal object. Pilgrims walk barefoot under the guidance of yamabushi (shugenja) and touch the hot water and rock to experience rebirth. The ancient rule for the form of the object is 'do not speak, do not listen,' and Basho wrote in Oku no Hosomichi, 'The Yudono of which one cannot speak - my sleeves are wet with tears.' The structure has three parts: the founding tradition (Prince Hachiko's opening of the Dewa Sanzan); the secret-rite character of Yudono-san and the establishment of the taboo; and the three-mountain pilgrimage of the Dewa Sanzan as a death-and-rebirth circuit. The three mountains are arranged within the three-world view as Haguro-san for the present, Gassan for the past and Yudono-san for the future, in the establishment of the three-mountain pilgrimage of the yamabushi white-robe tradition. The site preserves the primal form of worship of the rock itself, without a main hall. The site is the Yudono-san Jinja main shrine in Tamugimata, Tsuruoka. With Dewa Jinja (Mount Haguro) in Haguro-machi, Tsuruoka, and Gassan Jinja on Mount Gassan in Shonai-machi, it forms the Dewa Sanzan, within the Bandai-Asahi National Park. Sources include the Dewa Sanzan Shrine origin texts, the Yudono-san descent section of Basho's Oku no Hosomichi for Genroku 2 (1689) and Sanzan Gashu. Dewa Sanzan Shrine records, Cultural Affairs Agency materials on the National Historic Site 'Haguro-san Kyozuka' and the folklore volume of the Yamagata prefectural history provide further documentation. The medieval Shugendo manual Shugendo Shoso line also refers to Yudono-san.