Yamada Family (former Genji Masamune Sake Brewery) Lantern

A Stone Lantern That Marked the Way

At the entrance to the drive leading up to the Yamada estate stands a stone lantern about three meters high. It is a jōyatō, an "ever-burning light," a type of lantern kept lit through the night. This one had a public purpose beyond lighting a private gate: it stood on the approach to Yakuriji and served as a waymarker for pilgrims climbing to the temple.

Yakuriji, the eighty-fifth of the eighty-eight temples of the Shikoku pilgrimage, is known for its Shōten deity, affectionately called "Shōten-san" by locals. The lantern's east face carries the inscription "Shōten-sha," recording the reason for its erection, while its south face, along the approach road, bears the name of the man who paid for it: Yamada Tokuemon, master of the house. A donor putting his name to a roadside lantern was making a visible act of devotion and public benefit at once.

The lantern is dated to the late Edo period, to the Kōka era of the 1840s (recorded as 1847 in the national database). That makes it, with the long gatehouse, one of the two oldest of the estate's registered structures, older by generations than the Taishō brewery buildings behind it.

Reading the Inscriptions

The value of a piece like this lies partly in what is carved on it. The two inscriptions together fix the lantern in place and time: who raised it, to what end, and in whose devotional world. "Shōten-sha" ties it to the temple's deity; "Yamada Tokuemon" ties it to the family whose estate would later become the udon restaurant. Reading the stone is a way of reading the relationship between a leading local family and the pilgrimage route that passed its door.

A lantern of this age also carries the ordinary history of the road itself. Standing at the entrance of the drive, it once helped pilgrims find their footing after dark on the climb to Yakuriji, a small but real service that a wealthy household could provide to the many travellers passing through.

Its Place Today

The lantern was registered on 12 October 2001, together with the main house and the other estate buildings, under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape. Positioned at the entrance to the grounds, it still marks the point where the estate meets the pilgrimage road, doing much the same work of orientation it did in the nineteenth century.

For a visitor, it is worth pausing at the lantern before going in. Look for the two inscriptions on its shaft, and consider that you are standing where generations of pilgrims once oriented themselves toward the temple above.