S P O T ／ SPOT-319

The Seven Wonders of Ashizuri

足摺七不思議あしずりななふしぎ

At the southernmost tip of Shikoku, where the cliffs of Cape Ashizuri drop to the Pacific, the walking paths around Kongofukuji — Temple No. 38 of the great pilgrimage — are studded with curiosities tied to the monk Kobo Daishi (Kukai), known collectively as the Seven Wonders of Ashizuri. The number is a poetic conceit: "seven" here means "many," and the count comfortably exceeds seven. There is the Yurugi-ishi, a rocking stone said to measure your filial piety by how readily it sways when you climb on and rock it; a stone basin whose water rises and falls with the ocean tide, and another whose water never increases or decreases at all; the Turtle-Calling Place, where the Daishi is said to have summoned a turtle to ferry him out to a rock in the sea; a Turtle Stone that faces due south; an unfinished torii the Daishi could not raise in a single night; a stone on which he is said to have carved the six characters of the Buddha's name with his fingernail; and a "hole to hell" said to tunnel underground. Woven together from a pilgrimage temple, natural oddities, and the legend of a wonder-working saint — with the cape itself doubling as the legendary launch point for Fudaraku sea-crossings toward Kannon's southern paradise — the Seven Wonders are less a list of sights than the stage set of a faith you can walk through.