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Sanriku Fukkō NP, Miyagi
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At Tatsugane’s No. 5 mound, archaeologists found Lotus Sutra scrolls inside a bronze cylinder, with a mirror showing cranes pecking pine fitted beneath its base—a striking detail sealed away about 800 years ago.
Nearby Arasawa Shrine preserves a 4.97-metre gold-lettered sutra on indigo paper, traditionally linked to Jakkōji on Tatsugane. Its cover says volume 297, but the text says 296—a clue the cover was replaced.
These 11 mounds were built amid late-Heian fears that Buddhist teaching would fade in a coming age of disorder. Sutras were sealed underground to preserve them for the future—a 12th-century act of spiritual backup.
Local tradition says Tatsugane once held 48 temples and 380 monks’ quarters. Archaeologists have found building traces and medieval pottery on a hillside flat, identified as the likely site of Jakkōji.
Though tied to Michinoku’s gold story, Tatsugane was a sacred mountain, not a mine. Its summit mounds occupy a vantage over Sanriku gold districts marked on an old Kesen–Motoyoshi map.
One local explanation derives “Tatsugane” from tatsugamine, “Dragon Ridge.” From the summit, the capes are said to form a dragon’s tail, with nearby Nata and Sata linked in local lore to its feet.
On the old Way of the Ascetics, Anataki’s name comes from the cave through its falling water. A town account says the cave was once a Shugendō training place and a site for enshrining Arasawa Fudō.
When the ridge was opened as pasture, a 4,600-m² stand of yamatsutsuji was kept as Tatsugane Azalea Garden. Its oldest shrubs are estimated at 200 years; the late-May festival still celebrates the bloom.
Tatsugane’s summit meadows shelter more than flowers: Japan’s national-park plan records native primroses and rare Hime-shirochō butterflies among the species associated with its open grasslands.
