The Holy Man of Mount Koya (Koya Hijiri)

**Kyoka Izumi's Masterpiece of Visionary Literature**

**A Landmark of Gothic Fantasy in Modern Japanese Fiction**

**Praised by Yukio Mishima Alongside *Ugetsu Monogatari***

**Reborn on Stage by Kabuki Legend Bando Tamasaburo**

*Deep in the mountains, mercy and monstrosity wear the same face.*

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Published in 1900, ***The Holy Man of Mount Koya*** (Koya Hijiri) is a masterpiece representing the visionary literature of Kyoka Izumi. The story unfolds as a nested tale: Socho, a traveling monk from Mount Koya, recounts to a young man he meets on the road a mysterious experience from his youth—crossing a desolate mountain pass crawling with snakes and leeches, only to encounter a woman of impossible beauty living alone in the wilderness.

This is not merely a ghost story. It is **a fusion of contradictions**—desire and salvation, beauty and terror, holiness and demonicity—held together by the Japanese aesthetic ideal of *yugen*, mysterious depth beneath a shimmering surface. The woman who heals Socho's wounds is Madonna and monster at once; the monk who resists her is torn between faith and flesh. **Nothing in this story is only one thing.**

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*"Kyoka's genius pierces deeply into the mysteries of humanity, gender, and existence itself"* — comparing *The Holy Man of Mount Koya* to the classic *Ugetsu Monogatari*. *—Yukio Mishima, novelist*

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Over a century after its publication, its haunting charm remains undiminished. ***The Holy Man of Mount Koya*** has been adapted into the 1957 film *Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees*, television dramas, anime, stage readings, and Kabuki—most notably the celebrated production directed by and starring **Bando Tamasaburo**, which revived Kyoka's visionary beauty for a modern age. Through manga adaptations and international translations, it remains unique and peerless in Japanese literary history.

*You will not be able to tell where the woman's mercy ends and her monstrosity begins.* *Neither, in the end, could Socho.*