Nikko was sacred ground long before Ieyasu was enshrined here.

In 766 (some accounts say 767), late in the Nara period, the monk Shodo, regarded as the founder of Nikko's mountain worship, set out to climb Mount Nantai. He was stopped in his tracks by the Daiya River, swollen with snowmelt into a raging torrent he had no way to cross. As he stood stranded, a deity appeared on the far bank, identifying himself as Jinja Daio.

Jinja Daio released two snakes he held in his hands. They stretched to form a bridge spanning both banks, and sedge grass grew along their backs. Shodo crossed on this bridge of snakes and later succeeded in reaching the summit of Mount Nantai. The bridge was first known as the "sedge snake bridge," a name that eventually gave way to today's Shinkyo — the Sacred Bridge.

Some scholars see this story as having taken shape during the process by which mountain worship and Buddhism merged in Nikko — Jinja Daio, notably, is originally a Buddhist guardian deity. Weaving both divine and Buddhist power into the bridge's origin story would have helped establish Nikko as sacred ground from both religious traditions at once. It's best read not as historical fact, but as a story that reveals how Nikko's faith was assembled over time.

About a kilometer upstream from Shinkyo Bridge along the Daiya River lies a gorge called Kanmangafuchi. Lining its banks is a row of stone Jizo statues locals have long called the "Ghost Jizo" (Bake-Jizo).

They were carved in 1654. Tradition holds that the priest Kokai, a disciple of the great priest Tenkai, had a hundred of Tenkai's disciples each carve one statue. The legend that gives them their nickname is simple: count them walking one direction, then count again coming back, and the numbers never match. In practice, the dense trees and moss-covered stones make it easy to miss a few, and a major flood from the 1902 Ashio typhoon washed away many of the original statues — the restoration afterward likely scrambled both their positions and their count, lending the legend a strange credibility. Around 70 statues remain today.

Even the name Kanmangafuchi has an unexpected origin. Priest Kokai is said to have named it after hearing the sound of the Daiya River as an echo of the final syllables — "kanman" — of a Buddhist mantra to the deity Fudo Myoo. Despite sitting just a short walk from the main shrine complex, this spot draws far fewer visitors than it deserves, and is well regarded among those in the know as "Nikko's quieter side."

Futarasan Shrine, one of the "two shrines and one temple" of Nikko, is often billed simply as a shrine for matchmaking and romance — a framing that skips over its actual origin. Its enshrined deities are mapped onto the mountains of Nikko itself: the father, Okuninushi, resides on Mount Nantai; the mother, Tagorihime, on Mount Nyoho; and the son, Ajisukitakahikone, on Mount Taro. Together, the three peaks form a single family.

Sacred trees within the grounds — the "married-couple cedars," the "parent-and-child cedars" — echo this same mountain worship. In other words, the "musubi" (bonds) this shrine is famous for aren't only about romance: they represent the idea that every person stands at the leading edge of an unbroken chain of connections. A visit framed only around love-luck skips the depth of mountain worship underneath it.