Daikō-ji (Temple 67) to Zentsū-ji (Temple 75)
Homecoming
- Distance
- 50 km
- Climb
- 600 m up, 600 m down
- Ground
- 10 to 350 m
- Time
- 12 to 15 hours
- Difficulty
- moderate
- Underfoot
- paved, forest, urban
Where this day sits on the Shikoku 88
Above, the highest and lowest ground of each of its 10 stages. Below, the word each day is given.
From open-pilgrimages: each stage's highest and lowest ground and its interior theme.
The day
Zentsū-ji is where Kūkai was born. To stand in this temple is to stand at the source. After weeks of walking in his footsteps, you arrive at his beginning. Many pilgrims find this more moving than the finish. There is a darkness ritual in the basement of the Daishi Hall — you walk through absolute blackness, hand on a wall, trusting the path you cannot see. It distills the entire pilgrimage into three minutes.
What pilgrims often meet here
- Deep emotion at Kūkai's birthplace
- The darkness ritual as a pilgrimage within the pilgrimage
- Temples coming fast now, accelerating toward the end
In the darkness beneath Kūkai's birthplace, what did your hands find that your eyes could not?
The ground
Dense temple cluster through the Sanuki Plain. Temple 75 (Zentsū-ji) is Kūkai's birthplace — the spiritual heart of the pilgrimage.
The light
Sunrise and sunset in Daikō-ji (Temple 67) depend on the day you walk.
Walk it with Pilgrim
Pilgrim walks the Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage in parts, one day at a time in Honor mode, with each day's own morning words and its own question at the end. Its days are cut more finely than the stages here, so this stretch falls across 2 days in the app:
- Sanuki, day 1 Sankaku-ji (Temple 65) to Fujikawa Ryokan
- Sanuki, day 2 Fujikawa Ryokan to Konzo-ji (Temple 76)
Each opens that day in Pilgrim, or shows it with where to get the app.