Cultural Assets－Sutra Mounds

Sutra mound #24. This mound is located on Hiraishi-toge Pass, to the north of Mount Iwahashi. Lying to the south of Mount Nijo, Mount Iwahashi is on the border between Kawachi (Osaka) and Yamato (Nara). On a mountainside right before the pass, you’ll find stone steps leading to two stone statues—one of En no Gyoja and another of the Buddhist deity Fudo Myo-o. The area around Mount Iwahashi is dotted with sites related to Shugendo and remarkable rock formations. These include a boulder called Kume no Iwahashi (“Stone bridge of Kume”). According to legend, the boulder is an unfinished bridge that En no Gyoja ordered the local guardian deity Hitokotonushi to build. Another is a group of boulders through which Shugendo practitioners squeeze in a practice called tainaikuguri (“passing through a womb”)—a practice that symbolizes rebirth.