Sitting on top of Mount Takao to the northwest of the downtown Kyoto at the top of a long flight of stairs, Jingo-ji dates back to 824 and a merger, instituted by statesman Wake no Kiyomaro, of two private temples founded earlier. They were Jingan-ji in Kiyomaro's home province (present day Osaka Prefecture) and Takaosan-ji, founded on the current site in 781. The combined temple was named Jingokokusoshingon-ji (Shingon temple for divine protection of the country) and Kukai (774-835), the founder of the Shingon sect, was named as the head priest.
Like most significant sites, buildings at Jingo-ji have been destroyed by fire and war over the years. The original structures were rebuilt in 1184 after being burnt down but most were destroyed again in the Onin War. Only the Daishido survived and several of the current buildings date from a major reconstruction commissioned by Itakura Katsushige, a daimyo and former Kyoto shoshidai in the Tokugawa shogunate, in 1623.
Another reconstruction took place in the 1930s.
Madam was having the time of her life capturing images of coloured leaves, and by the time she'd caught up the camera crew, who'd skipped the structures I'd just passed, we're making their way up the stairs before me. Madam was all for heading up that way herself, but the prospect of further climbing along with the camera-dodging had me deciding to make my way back to the approaches to the temple and spend the time gazing at the multicoloured hillsides.
And if you're calling me a sook on the strength of that last decision, it's Mister
Sook.
Iif I’d done a bit of research before arrival I would have taken myself over to the Jizo Hall, located above the Kiyotaki River where you can buy clay cups (kawarakenage) to throw off the adjacent cliff (kin'unkei) to rid yourself of bad karma. At ¥100 for two, that seems like a rather economical way to achieve that aim, but it only works (or so the on-line research suggests) if you can get the disk all the way down to the river. Flick the discs very gently, convex side up, like a Frisbee.
If only I'd known...
It took a while, but eventually Madam made her way back to where I was standing and we began the descent, predictably a much quicker process than the uphill one, though there were delays along the way as images worth capturing presented themselves in the changing light.
There were a couple of places where the conformation of the stairs permitted a rapid descent, with a single stride covering the whole of a step that needed a stride and a bit on the way up, but things were tempered by the frequent need to stop, look around and ascertain how far Someone Else had progressed.