Virtual Akata 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #25 Otaki Fudo

 

     Fudo means Acalanatha.

     After finding the "Akata Otaki" sign, you drive along the mountain road for a few minutes.  Park your car in the parking lot and get out, and you hear the sound of rushing water coming from beyond the greenery.  Drawn by the sound, you walk down the promenade, and a large waterfall appears on your left.  You carefully cross the river, being careful not to fall, and arrive in front of the waterfall.

     The waterfall has a drop of 23m, and the flow changes at the top.  The whitish rocks visible at the top of the waterfall are rhyolite, formed when an undersea volcano erupted between 23 million and 5.33 million years ago.

     Akata Waterfall was formed here because there is a fault line running in a north-south direction.

     The waterfall nestles among the Akata Goho Mountains (Mount Toko, Mount Butsudo, Mount Sasamori , Mounta Kuromori, and Mount Katagari), which are said to have been religiously opened by Priest Zezan, who founded Chokoku-ji Temple in Akata Village, and in the past, ascetic training was carried out under the waterfall.

     Acalanatha might have been enshrined at the foot of the waterfall.  Somehow or other, Acalanatha is often connected with a waterfall.  There are 135 Fudo Waterfalls in Japan.