S P O T ／ SPOT-269

Akame 48 Waterfalls & the Akame Fudo Faith of Enjuin

赤目四十八滝・延寿院不動信仰あかめしじゅうはちたき・えんじゅいんふどうしんこう

For nearly four kilometers, the Takigawa gorge in Nabari descends in a staircase of waterfalls — the Akame Forty-Eight Falls — though 'forty-eight' is a Buddhist way of saying 'too many to count.' This is sacred ground. En no Gyoja, the Nara-period founder of Japan's mountain-ascetic tradition of Shugendo, is said to have trained here, and the very name 'Akame' ('red eye') comes from a legend in which the ascetic met the wrathful deity Fudo Myo-o riding a red-eyed ox. That deity lives on at Enjuin, the Tendai temple guarding the gorge's mouth, whose Akame Fudo is ranked among the three great Fudo images of Japan. The falls themselves have served as places of waterfall austerity, and — with the ninja country of Iga next door — the gorge also markets itself as a 'village of ninja training,' carrying a double memory of monk and shinobi. Five great cascades anchor the walk: Fudo, Senju, the cloth-like 30-meter Nunobiki, the twin-streamed Ninai, and Biwa. At the entrance, the Japan Giant Salamander Center shelters the protected giant salamander, adding a strange, primeval note to a landscape where faith, training, and scenery have been one for over a thousand years.