Kumano Kodō: To the Three Grand Shrines

Takijiri-oji is where the registered World Heritage section of the Nakahechi begins, and the old texts treated it as the entrance to Kumano's sacred ground. Pilgrims arriving here presented offerings and then stepped into the stream in front of the shrine to purify themselves before climbing on. From this point it is about 37 km of mountain trail to Kumano Hongū Taisha.

Most pilgrims break the walk to Hongū into two days and sleep at Chikatsuyu, about halfway. It was an ancient post station on the route and was far more populous in the pilgrimage's peak years than today. A local tale says a boy emperor snapped a reed nearby and asked whether the dripping liquid was blood or dew, which gave the place its name: chi ka tsuyu. Today it is a small village of about 450 people beside the Hidaka River.

Location precision: The pin marks the area around Chikatsuyu-oji; the village itself is spread along the river.

The name comes from a mountain-faith idea of four gates on the way to a holy peak; hosshin means resolving to enter the Buddhist path. In 1109 a diarist recorded a great torii here, where pilgrims performed purification before passing through. Fujiwara no Teika described the shrine during the 1201 pilgrimage of Go-Toba's party. The shrine was merged into another in 1907, and the present building dates only from 1990.

All of the ancient Kumano Kodō routes lead to Hongū. The shrine once stood on a sandbank at Ōyunohara, where the Kumano and Otonashi rivers meet, until a flood in 1889 destroyed part of it and the remaining buildings were moved to the present site in 1891. In 2000 a torii 33.9 m tall and 42 m wide, the largest in the world, was raised at the entrance to the old sandbank. Visitors can see both the shrine and the empty grounds of Ōyunohara.

From Hongū, most pilgrims took a boat down the Kumano River to Kumano Hayatama Taisha, one of the three grand shrines. It stands in Shingū on the bank of the river. The three shrines lie between 20 and 40 km from one another, and the pilgrimage route links them. The Nakahechi, the route that brought pilgrims from the ancient capital Kyoto, was the most popular of the roads, so many arrived here after crossing the mountains.

Daimon-zaka is known as the stretch that keeps the look of the old Kumano Kodō best. About 1 km of stone steps and paving climbs through cedar forest toward Nachi. The name comes from a former gate at its foot where a toll was collected. The twin cedars at the entrance, about 800 years old, rise 54.5 m. The slope ends beside Nachi Taisha, Seiganto-ji and the falls.

Visitor guidance: A bus from Kii-Katsuura station takes about 20 minutes to the Daimon-zaka stop.

Nachi Taisha and the temple Seiganto-ji stand side by side beneath the falls. A sacred camphor tree between them is 850 years old and said to have been planted by Taira no Shigemori. Seiganto-ji is the first stop on the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage; Hideyoshi rebuilt its main hall in 1587. Each 14 July the shrine holds the Nachi no Hi Matsuri fire festival.

At 133 m, Nachi Falls is the tallest single-drop waterfall in Japan. It is worshipped as the home of a kami, Hiryū Gongen, honoured at Nachi Taisha, and each morning the Shinto priest makes offerings to it in a ritual. Temple legend says Emperor Kazan completed 1000 days of spiritual training under the falls.