Shasui Falls

About

Shasui Falls (の; Shasui-no-taki) is a waterfall on the Tanzawa River in Yamakita, Ashigarakami District, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.

The Shasui Falls is located in the precincts of Saishō-ji, a Buddhist temple, and has been used by yamabushi and Buddhist clergy for takegyo purification ceremonies, in which participants stand underneath the fall, allowing the water to strike their head and upper body.

The Shasui Falls drops in three separate plunges with a total height of 90 metres (300 ft). The upper falls has a height of 69 m (226 ft), the middle falls 16 m (52 ft), and the lower falls 29 m (95 ft). The falls are mentioned as the Shasui Falls (の) in the Shin-Sagamikuni Fudoki of 1841, but have been known since at least the late Heian period. During the early Kamakura period, the famed monk Mongaku is said to have spent one hundred days in meditation and austerities at this waterfall, and the temple of Saishō-ji has an image of Fudo Myoo called the "Waterfall Fudō", which it attributes to Mongaku.

The Shasui Falls is listed as one of "Japan's top 100 waterfalls", in a list published by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment in 1990. It is also one of the "50 scenic spots of Kanagawa Prefecture" in a 1979 listing published by the Kanagawa Prefecture Tourism Association.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.