{Shikoku Hachijūhachikasho Meguri}
--Tokushima University Henro Trail DVD--
--Tokushima University Henro Trail DVD--
According to an article in the Tokushima Newspaper (4/11/09, Tokushima News section), students at Tokushima University have released a DVD in English about the henro temples in Tokushima Prefecture. In addition, they have posted them on YouTube under the title Tokushima: The Sacred Temples
A rough translation of the article:
Seven students of the Foreign Cultures Communication Laboratory of the Department of Integrated Sciences at Tokushima University have made an English language DVD to introduce the attraction of the Shikoku Pilgrimage to foreigners. The DVD was part of their research towards graduation and will be distributed free of charge at the International Exchange Organization in Tokushima City and at Ryōzenji (Temple 1) in Naruto.
The title of the DVD is Tokushima — The Sacred Temples, and is being released in 2-disk sets with both English and Japanese versions included. 100 sets have been produced. The DVD runs for approximately 1 hour and covers the history of the pilgrimage, Kōbō Daishi (Kūkai), the 23 temples in Tokushima Prefecture, and more.
Students in the laboratory come from overseas as well as other prefectures in Japan, and chose the pilgrimage as their research theme for the subject of what is representitive of Tokushima Prefecture. Since February of last year [2008] the students have been visiting the head priests of each temple, as well as talking to professors of Japanese history and gathering other materials. In addition, to ensure that the material is easy for foreigners to understand, they have been consulting with other foreign students and translating and compiling a glossary of technical terms such as mizuya and Nyōraizō.
The students have been responsible for all of the work, from documenting the scenery at the temples and photographing different aspects of what pilgrims do when visiting a temple to editing the images and doing the narration. Daniel Lynch (21), an American, says "The pilgrimage culture is something we can boast of to the entire world. I want to show it to my friends in the US as well as my family. I want a lot of people to know of the attractions of Tokushima."
The DVD can also be seen on the Internet on the YouTube web site.
Thanks to David Moreton in Tokushima for sending us the link to the article.