Shugen-dō

Shugen-dō is a Japanese religious tradition combining folk beliefs with indigenous Shintō and Buddhism, to which have been added elements of Chinese religious Taoism. The Shugen-dō practitioner, the yamabushi (literally, “one who bows down in the mountains”), engages in spiritual and physical disciplines in order to attain magical power effective against evil spirits. Mountains, considered in folk religions “other worlds,” were for the esoteric Buddhists training grounds for ascetics.