48 Waterfalls of Nachi

What it is

• A series of over sixty waterfalls located within the Nachi Primeval Forest.
• Forty-eight specific falls serve as designated training sites for Shugendo mountain asceticism.
• The sites are named after figures and concepts from Shinto, Buddhism, and Taoism.
• Historically a forbidden area, these falls were rediscovered and mapped in the early twentieth century.

What to see

• The second waterfall where Emperor Kazan once performed a thousand-day ascetic training.
• Waterfalls distributed across four different valleys within the protected mountain landscape.
• A 1931 scroll by Inada Beika used to identify the specific waterfall locations.
• The forty-eighth waterfall, which represents a mental state rather than a physical location.

When to go

• Every January for the two-day waterfall pilgrimage hosted by Seiganto-ji Temple.

Notes written by Japan Gems from facts in Japanese Wikipedia.