Sai no Kawara

Inside Adashino Nenbutsuji Temple, roughly 8,000 stone grave markers collected from the surrounding hillsides are arranged in quiet rows. The site dates to a systematic effort about a century ago to gather markers that had been placed across the Adashino area since the Heian period, many of them buried under soil and growth for centuries. A thirteen-tier pagoda anchors the center, and an Amida Buddha statue overlooks the rows. Photography inside the stone-walled enclosure is not permitted. Every late August, candles are lit across the space in a memorial service called Sento Kuyo.