Reikado

This guide to Reikado on Mount Misen above Miyajima follows a flame said to have been lit in the year 806 by the monk Kukai, and kept burning by hand ever since, including through fires that destroyed the hall itself in 2005 and again in 2026. It traces how the flame survived those blazes even when the building around it did not. Above it hangs a blackened iron kettle whose water pilgrims have queued for centuries to drink, convinced it cures whatever ails them.