Sado Cycling: Nashinoki Jizo

I've never seen so many statues or figures of Jizo-sama at one place. The story of the Nishinoki Pass Stone Jizo is legendary. Long ago, a fisherman from the coastal village of Toyoda set out in his single-mast vessel. Some distance from shore, the sail unaccountably went slack, and his boat stopped. Peering into the sea, he noticed a shiny object on the sea bottom; diving in, he retrieved a small figure (30cm) of Jizo-sama. Abandoning the fishing, he returned to port, where he summoned his neighbors to discuss what to do, as this eerie and unprecedented experience clearly required a response. The result: a shrine to the Bodhisattva. Some time later, as the votive figures to Jizo-sama increased, it was decided to move the shrine to Nashinoki Pass, several kilometers from Toyoda Village. As the video shows, there are thousands of Jizo-sama figurines. The shrine has an air of isolation (though it is no more than 100 meters from the road, the sign announcing it is parallel to the roadway, not perpendicular), dereliction, even abandon. The pinwheels and stuffed animals were especially poignant (as appeals are made to Jizo-sama by pregnant mothers and parents of children suffering from illness).