The New Student's Reference Work/Nikko

Nikko (nēk′ kō), one of the chief religious centers of Japan, is beautifully situated in the Nikko Zan (Mountains of the Sun’s Brightness), about eighty miles northwest of Tokio.  A Shinto temple seems to have existed at Nikko from time immemorial, and in 767 its first Buddhist temple was founded; but the main celebrity of the place is due to the sepulchers and sanctuaries of Iyeyasu and Iyemitsu, the first and third shoguns of the Tokugawa dynasty.  Iyeyasu was buried here with amazing pomp in 1617.  His tomb lies forty steps higher up the hills than the numerous magnificent temples and other structures which cluster around it.  Above the tomb, the hill on which it stands is covered to the summit with trees of various tints, while below are a vast number of temples, shrines, pagodas, monuments and religious edifices of all kinds, to which thousands of pilgrims resort every year, and by whose gifts Nikko has been thus beautified, making it one of the most attractive spots in all Japan, in addition to being the great sanctuary of the Shinto cult.