Fudoin Iwayado

Locally knownKnown to people who live here. Not in the international guidebooks.

Researched and written by Hinato

Fudoin IwayadokakezukuriWakasaImportant Cultural Propertycliff hall

Photo: Reggaeman / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) · original

Ask where to send a first-time visitor for a temple or shrine in Tottori, and Fudoin Iwayado comes up more than once.

A hall about thirteen metres high fitted into a natural rock cavern beside a mountain stream, its floor carried on long posts in the kakezukuri manner, dating from the early Muromachi period. It is one of the three great thrown-in halls of Japan alongside Nageiredo on Mt. Mitoku and Ryuganji in Oita, and it was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1953.

The difference from Nageiredo is that you can walk up to this one. It stands at the roadside in a hamlet in Wakasa with a stream in front of it, and looking at it costs nothing and requires no climb. The Fudo Myoo enshrined inside is attributed by tradition to Kukai at the age of thirty-three. The image is shown twice a year, on the last Sunday of March and of July, when fire rites are performed.

Visiting essentials

Best time to visit

Year-round | Late March and late July for the fire rites and the open interior

Hours

Viewable at all times from outside | Interior shown on the last Sunday of March and of July

Closed: Open year-round for exterior viewing

Admission

Free

Time to allow

30–45 minutes

Finding your way there

Access notes

Iwayado, Wakasa, Yazu District. By Wakasa town bus from Wakasa Station on the Wakasa Railway, on the Ochiori or Yoshikawa service, to the Iwayado stop. Free to view. The enshrined Fudo Myoo is displayed on the last Sunday of March and the last Sunday of July, when goma fire rites are held. Wakasa tourism association.

What locals know

**No climb, unlike Nageiredo.** This is the accessible one of the three great cliff halls — it stands at the roadside and you can stand under it. That alone is the argument for coming. **Two open days a year.** The last Sunday of March and of July, with fire rites, are when the Fudo Myoo inside is shown. Otherwise the hall is viewed from outside. **See it with Nageiredo if you can.** Two of Japan's three thrown-in halls are in Tottori, about an hour apart. Doing both in a day is the specialist's version of this trip. **Reachable by the Wakasa Railway.** The small private line from Koge, plus a town bus. That makes it viable without a car, unusually for a site like this. **Combine with Wakasa town.** The post town streets and the railway's turntable are ten minutes away.

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