A trip to Kagawa Prefecture’s Kotohira Shrine, colloquially known as “Konpira-san,” is not for the easily winded.
Still, each year thousands of pilgrims make the climb halfway up the 538-meter Mount Zozu to pray to the Shinto god Omononushi. To do so, they must ascend the arduous 785 ishidan (stone steps) to the main shrine and another 583 to make it to the inner shrine.
The climb is so daunting that, back in the Edo Period (1603-1868), a custom emerged allowing dogs known as “Konpira inu” to retrieve blessings from the shrine on behalf of those unable to complete the pilgrimage — perhaps the world’s first “spiritual support dogs.”
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