Find me at the bench in the center of Dunn's Woods.

Shikoku Henro (34.1596727,134.5003381), stop 1

Buddhist priest Kūkai was born Saeki no Mao (Mao, of the Saeki family) on the island of Shikoku in Japan. His early studies led to a life of ascetic and meditative practices as a Buddhist and an administrator in 9th century Japan. His writings on Buddhism in the Japanese tradition led to his other name, Kōbō Daishi , or Great Teacher.

The Shikoku Henro, or Shikoku pilgrimage, is a circular pilgrimage to 88 sites on Shikoku associated with Kūkai's 9th-century life; much of the path is forested and offers contemplation of both the natural world and Kūkai's Buddhist teachings. A collection of folksongs from 12th-century Japan, the Ryojin Hisho, mentions the Shikoku pilgrimage among a number of other pilgrimages. One poem laments the winter pilgrimage and the trees that lose their leaves:

The mountain ascetic suffers the austerity of winter: his house of trees has lost.(*RH 305)

 By the 16th century, 88 specific sites had emerged as a pilgrimage tradition that lives on today.

* Kim, Yung-Hee. Songs to Make the Dust Dance: The Ryojin Hisho of Twelfth-Century Japan. Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press,  1994. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft2f59n7x0/ 

Image: Eight Patriarchs of the Shingon Sect of Buddhism, Kūkai; Kamakura period, 13th-14th century. Source: Integrated Collections Database of the National Museums, Japan, https://colbase.nich.go.jp/collection_items/narahaku/797-8?locale=en

• Take a course on medieval Japan with Professor Morten Oxenboell, (East Asian Languages and Culture; Director of the East Asian Studies Center)
•  Professor Heather Blair (Religious Studies) whose current project, Reverently I Pray: A Social, Literary, and Religious History of Prayer in Medieval Japan, looks at networks of patronage in medieval Japan.

Entry submitted by Morten Oxenboell, East Asian Languages and Cultures

John Moschos' Spiritual Meadow (27.3818648, 30.7752614)

Between the end of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh century, Byzantine monk John Moschos and his friend Sophronius undertook a long pilgrimage to meet the ascetics and wise men of the Eastern Christian world. Their last stop was the monastery of Deir ul-Muharraq

Travelling from Syria through the deserts of Palestine, Egypt, and Lybia, John and Sophronius encountered many monks and hermits who offered them wisdom in the form of stories. John recorded all these stories--from the adventurous to the hilarious to the awe-inspiring and thought-provoking--in a rich collection describing his travels called Spiritual Meadow:

Someone among the fathers told that one of the elderly ones, who was pure and saint, when he "did the proskomide" (i.e. celebrated Mass) saw angels staying at his right and at his left. He had taken over the "proskomide" from the heretics, and since he was ignorant about divine doctrines, he said the words of the offering in simplicity and innocence, not knowing that he was wrong. By providence, some brother, an expert in divine doctrines visited him. It came to pass that the old man made the offering in his presence. The brother said to him (he was a deacon): The words you said for the proskomide, Father, are not of the orthodox faith, but of the bad doctrine. The old one, since he saw angels during the offering, did not pay attention to what was said, but disdained it. The deacon insisted saying "You are in error, good old one, the Church does not accept this". The old man, seeing that he was accused and blamed in that way by the deacon, saw the angels as usual and asked them: "Since that deacon talks to me in such a way, what is it that he says ?" The angels said: "Listen to him: he says the truth". The old one said to them: "And why did not you tell me that ?" They said to him: "Because God disposed thus, that humans should be corrected by humans". And since then he corrected himself and thanked God and the brother.

• To learn more about John Moschos, monasticism, and travel literature in Syria and Palestine between late antiquity and the Middle Ages, consider taking any class taught by Professors Jeremy Schott and Daniel Caner.
• To learn more about the history of the Eastern Orthodox Church, check out the research and teaching from IU's Religious Studies department
• To make an appointment with Dr. William Smith, the MEST Academic Advisor, visit GISB 1028

Entry submitted by Nicolò Sassi (Religious Studies)

Find me where the newly renamed-campus river meets the western edge of the IMU.

The Cahokia Mounds (38.6550643, -90.0640115)

The Cahokia Mounds located in the Bottom Region (near Collinsville, Illinoise, in the Mississippian Southeast region of the United States) was home to one of the greatest cities in the world. The Cahokia urban area served a gathering place for a vast community of indigenous Native Americans from the 8th to the 14th century and, at its peak between 1000 and 1200 C.E., was larger than contemporary London. Located in the Bottom Region (now known as the Mississippian Southeast), Cahokia served as a home, and as a ritual and festival ground, for 20,000 people. Crowds filled its Grand Plaza and and visitors marked the winter and summer solstice at Cahokia's Woodhenge, an installation designed for astronomical observation.

Its largest earthen structure, Monks Mound, is roughly the size of the Great Pyramid at Giza, covering 15 acres at its base (a larger area than Dunn Meadow). Equally impressive are the new forms of material culture--including new pottery forms and markedly new uses for those new pottery forms--that was the result of Cahokia's development into a central gathering space for people from many Native American nations. Examples of Cahokian pottery have been found all across the middle of North America, from the upper Midwest to the lower South, suggesting the importance of Cahokia as both a gathering destination for, and as an influence on, a huge swath of North America.

• IUB is home to the Indiana Geological and Water Survey research center, where research scientists like William Monaghan map out the contours of the Cahokia Mounds for preservation and research purposes.
• Explore Professor Susan Alt's anthropology research on the Cahokia Mounds.
• Take ANTH-P361 The Prehistory of the US to learn more about the Midwestern US

Find me at the IU Health Center's drive-in gate.

The Shrine of St. Martin of Tours (47.3946308,-38.3422852)

Late 6th-century pilgrims from all over the Mediterranean came to a small shrine in Tours (what is now France) to heal their chronic and acute illnesses at the Shrine of St. Martin. Gregory of Tours, Bishop of St. Martin and author of a number of St. Martin's miracle stories, was himself healed through prayer at the tomb of St. Martin. He writes about it in The Four Books of the Miracles of St. Martin

Whenever headache comes on or a throbbing in the temples or a dulness of hearing or a dimness of sight or a pain attacks some other part, I am cured at once when I have touched the affected part on the tomb or the curtain hanging before it and I wonder within myself that at the very touch the pain is immediately gone. I shall place first in this book a miracle that I experienced recently. We were sitting at dinner after a fast and eating, when a fish was served. The sign of the cross of the Lord was made over it, but as we ate, a bone from this very fish stuck in my throat most painfully. It caused me great distress, for the point was fastened in my throat and its length blocked the passage. It prevented my speaking and kept the saliva which comes frequently from the palate, from passing. On the third day, when I could get rid of it neither by coughing or hawking, I resorted to my usual resource. I went to the tomb and prostrated myself on the pavement and wept abundantly and groaned and begged the confessor's aid. Then I rose and touched the full length of my throat and all my head with the curtain. I was immediately cured and before leaving the holy threshold I was rid of all uneasiness. What became of the unlucky bone I do not know. I did not cough it up nor feel it go down into my stomach. One thing only I know, that I so quickly perceived that I was cured that I thought that some one had put in his hand and pulled out the bone that hurt my throat. (Book 3; Preface & Chap 1)

The skull of St. Martin (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

• To learn more about Gregory of Tours and the early Middle Ages in the Mediterranean, consider taking HIST-H206 with Professor Deborah Deliyannis.
• To learn more about the history of Christianity and other religions, check out the research and teaching from IU's Religious Studies department

Entry submitted by Kalani Craig (Department of History, Medieval Studies Institute and the Institute for Digital Arts & Humanities)

Find me in the depths of the IMU near the truck loading zone entrance.

Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, "Monastery of the Caves" (50.4346375,30.5550671)

The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra or "Monastery of the Caves," founded by the legendary monk Antony, is comprised of a number of structures (churches, bell towers) and a system of narrow underground caverns and passageways that pre-date their use as an Eastern Orthodox site of worship. They have been associated with old Slavic beliefs in the powers of the "moist Mother Earth." The entire place is extremely bright and showy on the outside and rather claustrophobic on the underground inside.

• Two Gen Ed courses at the 200 level offer more information on this site in Kyiv: (1) Introduction to Ukrainian Culture (SLAV-U223) and (2) Introduction to Russian Culture (SLAV-R223).
• Explore more of the research and teaching IUB has done about Eastern Europe and the war in Ukraine on the Russian and Eastern European Institute's YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyzQS2u2OEfjneoGyZ40lnA

Entry submitted by Russell Valentino (Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures)