It was an eruption of Mt. Nantai roughly 20,000 years ago that created wondrous Nikko. Lava dammed the valley giving birth to Lake Chuzenji. The Nikko mountain range surrounds the lake at elevations of around 2000 m and has been revered by people for more than 1200 years as a sacred mountain worship site created by the gods. “Build a small temple in the mountains of Nikko and enshrine me there.” Approximately 400 years ago, the shogun who established the Edo shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542 – 1616), selected Nikko as his final resting place. Ieyasu never visited Nikko while he was alive, but in his mind it was the place where the gods gather and he longed to be there too. Those who worked on building the temples and shrines, such as Tosho-gu Shrine (World Heritage Site), where Ieyasu is enshrined, stayed in Nikko eventually developing their own unique culture. Numerous temples and shrines remain throughout Nikko, where the mountain-based faith continues even today. Many people visit Nikko now in the hopes of encountering the gods.