is a mountain to the north of the city of

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

. It is the birthplace of the

Reiki is a Japanese form of energy healing, a type of alternative medicine. Reiki practitioners use a technique called ''palm healing'' or ''hands-on healing'' through which a " universal energy" is said to be transferred through the palms of the ...

practice, and is said to be the home of

Sōjōbō In Japanese folklore and mythology, is the mythical king and god of the ''tengu'', legendary creatures thought to inhabit the mountains and forests of Japan. Sōjōbō is a specific type of ''tengu'' called ''daitengu'' and has the appearance o ...

, King of the

Tengu are a type of legendary creature found in Japanese folk religion (Shinto). They are considered a type of ''yōkai'' (supernatural beings) or Shinto ''kami'' (gods). The ''Tengu'' were originally thought to take the forms of birds of prey and a ...

(Goblins). Kurama is also the location of the annual , which takes place every October. is now designated as a national treasure of Japan.

Goblin king

Sōjōbō was supposedly the Tengu who taught swordsmanship to

Minamoto no Yoshitsune was a military commander of the Minamoto clan of Japan in the late Heian and early Kamakura periods. During the Genpei War, he led a series of battles which toppled the Ise-Heishi branch of the Taira clan, helping his half-brother Yoritomo conso ...

. The philosopher

Hayashi Razan , also known as Hayashi Dōshun, was a Japanese Neo-Confucianism, Neo-Confucian philosopher and writer, serving as a tutor and an advisor to the first four ''shōguns'' of the Tokugawa shogunate, Tokugawa ''bakufu''. He is also attributed with f ...

lists one of the three greatest of the ''

daitengu are a type of legendary creature found in Japanese folk religion (Shinto). They are considered a type of ''yōkai'' (supernatural beings) or Shinto ''kami'' (gods). The ''Tengu'' were originally thought to take the forms of birds of prey and a ...

'' as

of Mount Kurama. The demons of Kurama and Atago are among the most famous ''tengu''.

Holistic healing

The mountain is also known as the birthplace of the holistic healing art called

. In 1922 the founder of Reiki,

Mikao Usui Mikao Usui (臼井甕男, 15 August 1865 – 9 March 1926, commonly ''Usui Mikao'' in Japanese) was the father of a form of spiritual practice known as Reiki, used as an alternative therapy for the treatment of physical, emotional, and mental d ...

, meditated for 21 days on this mountain and received the Reiki healing energy and became an enlightened person and thus also true insight into the wisdom of life. Mikao Usui meditated near the top of the mountain at a site called Osugi Gongen, at the site of a great sacred tree (

kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...

) said to be an incarnation of the god Maoson.

References

Geographical Survey Institute
Kurama {{Kyoto-geo-stub

Goblin king

Holistic healing

See also

References