Rakan-ji Gohyaku Rakan

From the road in Omori you see a temple hall on one side and, on the other, a low cliff with stone arched bridges crossing a stream to it. The cliff is what you came for. Three caves have been cut into the rock: the middle one holds a stone Shakyamuni trinity, and the two on either side each hold 250 small seated arhats, the disciples of the Buddha, in rows in the half-dark. No two faces are the same. People have long said that if you look along the rows you will find one that resembles a parent or a child you have lost, and some visitors still come for that.

The temple says the project was vowed in 1741 by its priest Getsukai Join to console the spirits of the miners whose work at Iwami Ginzan made their lives short, and finished in 1766. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the carving work itself to 1757 to 1766, paid for by donations from samurai and merchants connected to the shogunate, and says the statues were carved by the Tsubouchi family of stonemasons from Fukumitsu stone, a local tuff. The temple points out that because they sit inside the rock rather than in the open, they have survived in good condition. The caves are one of the 14 component parts of the Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine and its Cultural Landscape, inscribed in 2007.

Across the road, the main hall of Rakan-ji has a dragon painted on its ceiling, and on the grounds is Sanbyakusui, a spring whose name comes from water once carried up to the mine and sold at 300 mon a load. It is listed among Shimane's notable spring waters.

Practical points: photography is not allowed in the arhat caves or in the main hall, which is a pity but makes the visit quieter. Twenty to thirty minutes is enough. The temple stands at the edge of Omori, where cars must stop, so it is an easy first or last stop on the walk to Ryugenji Mabu, about 45 minutes away on foot.