The Lantern Cedars of Fukuoji

Five cedars were planted on this hillside in 1391. Three are still alive. The temple keeps the details: the year was Meitoku 3, the Takeda clan paid for the work, the priest Ryokai was rebuilding the main hall at the time, and the trees went in alongside it. The Edo-period gazetteer Geihan Tsushi records them as well, and the city lists them as a natural monument. Their name is Tomyo-sugi, the Lantern Cedars, and it comes from an epidemic. People from the district climbed up here and lit lanterns in front of the trees in prayer, and by local telling the sickness went away. The losses have been recent rather than medieval. One cedar was felled in 1982 because it looked ready to come down, and another died and was cut back to a stump 2.2 metres high in 2004. What remains stands about 37 metres tall, and the thickest trunk measured 5.15 metres round in a national survey in 2000. That survey guessed the trees at only 200 to 300 years old, which sits badly against a planting recorded by date in 1391; the dated record is the better evidence, but the disagreement is worth knowing about. They are the first thing past the Niomon gate, up 53 stone steps, on a mountain people here call Aki no Koyasan. The last half hour from the bus stop is uphill on foot.