is a cluster of four islands in the

Inland Sea An inland sea (also known as an epeiric sea or an epicontinental sea) is a continental body of water which is very large in area and is either completely surrounded by dry land (landlocked), or connected to an ocean by a river, strait or " arm of ...

, off

Wakayama, Wakayama Wakayama City Hall is the capital city of Wakayama Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 351,391 in 157066 households and a population density of 1700 persons per km². The total area of the city is ...

, Japan. The four islands are , , , and . The islands form part of the

Setonaikai National Park is a Japanese national park, comprising areas of Japan's Seto Inland Sea, and of ten bordering Prefectures of Japan, prefectures. Designated a national park in 1934, it has since been expanded several times. It contains about 3,000 islands, know ...

History

The islands were used by

Buddhist monks A ''bhikkhu'' (, ) is an ordained male in Buddhist monasticism. Male, and female monastics (''bhikkhunī''), are members of the Sangha (Buddhist community). The lives of all Buddhist monastics are governed by a set of rules called the prātimo ...

for

Shugendō is a syncretic Esoteric Buddhist religion, a body of ascetic practices that originated in the Nara Period of Japan having evolved during the 7th century from an amalgamation of beliefs, philosophies, doctrines and ritual systems drawn prim ...

. The folklore of the region holds that ''Ennogyoja'', the founder of shugendo, underwent training on the steep cliffs of Tomogashima in the seventh to eighth centuries. This gave rise to the nickname of "The island of shugendo (mountain asceticism)" for Tomogashima. The first mound of the Katsuragi 28 Shuku is located on Torajima ("Tiger Island"). Later, during the

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

, a brick fort and

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens (optics), lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Ligh ...

were built. Also during this time gun batteries and other defences, along with various support facilities, were constructed to counter foreign warships. Tomogashima was a critical component of the Shusei Kokubō (守勢国防 - i.e. "Static Defence") policy of the 1870s and 1880s, which emphasised coastal defences. Access to the cluster by the public was strictly prohibited by the

Imperial Japanese Army The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA; , ''Dai-Nippon Teikoku Rikugun'', "Army of the Greater Japanese Empire") was the principal ground force of the Empire of Japan from 1871 to 1945. It played a central role in Japan’s rapid modernization during th ...

up to the end of World War II.Whispers of priests and warriors / Military past pervades Tomogashima island
The Japan News ''by the Yomiuri Shimbun'', July 14th, 2013.

Depictions in art

Tomogashima is the subject of a

scroll A scroll (from the Old French ''escroe'' or ''escroue''), also known as a roll, is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing. Structure A scroll is usually partitioned into pages, which are sometimes separate sheets of papyru ...

of 1661 in the Shōgo-in in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

Kanō Tan'yū was a Japanese painter of the Kanō school. One of the foremost Kanō painters of the Tokugawa period, many of the best known Kanō works today are by Tan'yū. Biography His original given name was Morinobu; he was the eldest son of K ...

as well as an anonymous work of 1798 in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. The island is the basis for the fictional Hitogashima Island in the

Summer Time Rendering , also written as ''Summertime Rendering'', is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by . It was serialized on Shueisha's digital magazine ''Shōnen Jump+'' from October 2017 to February 2021, with its chapters collected in thirt ...

manga and anime series.

Climate

References

External links

Views of Tomogashima
(

) {{coord, 34, 16, 55.9, N, 135, 0, 39.5, E, region:JP-30, display=title Islands of Wakayama Prefecture Forts in Japan Coastal fortifications Imperial Japanese Army Empire of Japan 19th-century fortifications in Japan

History

Depictions in art

Climate

See also

References

External links