Tenri

I have been in cities built for kings and cities built for commerce, but Tenri was the first I’d seen built for a belief. We got off the train at dusk and stepped into a covered shopping arcade that ran arrow-straight for nearly a kilometre, and everywhere, threading through the ordinary shops, were people in identical black coats stitched with a red character on the back. They weren’t tourists. They were going somewhere. Lia took my arm and said, quietly, “I think we’re the only two people here who aren’t.” She was probably right.

The Arcade to the Sanctuary

The Honmichi arcade is the spine of Tenri, and walking it is the way to understand the place. Between the noodle shops and the stationers there are dormitories, halls, and shops selling white ceremonial robes folded in cellophane. The crowd thickened as we went, all of it flowing in one direction, and there was no shoving, no hurry — just a broad, calm current of people. Everyone was walking toward the same place, and for once I didn’t mind not knowing why. We simply let the current carry us.

Inside the Oyasato-yakata

At the end stands the main sanctuary of Tenrikyō, ringed by the immense Oyasato-yakata complex — great black-tiled buildings so long they seem to bend with the earth. We left our shoes and stepped onto polished wood that stretched away like a frozen lake. In the central hall, worshippers knelt around a pillar that marks, they believe, the spot where humankind was created. Nobody minded us watching. An older man showed Lia the hand gestures of the sacred dance, patiently, three times, until she could follow, and his kindness stayed with me longer than any temple I’ve photographed.

Isonokami and the Old Road

Tenri isn’t only the new faith. On the town’s edge begins the Yamanobe-no-michi, said to be Japan’s oldest road, and a short walk up it brought us to Isonokami Shrine — ancient, cedar-shaded, where sacred chickens strut across the gravel as if they own it. After the vast geometry of the sanctuary, the shrine felt human-sized and wonderfully strange. We ate rice balls on a stone wall while a rooster eyed Lia’s lunch, and the two Japans — the very old and the barely-a-century-old — sat side by side without any apparent trouble.

Getting There

Tenri is remarkably easy to reach. The Kintetsu Tenri Line and the JR Sakurai Line both terminate at Tenri Station, about 25 minutes from Nara and under an hour from Osaka’s Uehonmachi. The arcade begins right outside the station, so leave the map in your pocket and simply follow the black coats east — they’ll deliver you to the sanctuary. For the Yamanobe-no-michi, pick up a walking sketch-map at the small tourist desk in the station; the old road runs north from town toward Nara over gentle, orchard-covered hills.