11 Fujii-dera

Fujii-dera is the 11th temple on the Shikoku Pilgrimage, a circuit of 88 Buddhist sites on Japan's Shikoku island that pilgrims have walked for over a thousand years in devotion to the monk Kūkai, known posthumously as Kōbō Daishi. The temple belongs to the Myōshinji branch of Rinzai Zen Buddhism and sits tucked into forested mountains above the Yoshino River near Yoshinogawa in Tokushima Prefecture. It marks the start of one of the pilgrimage route's first serious mountain sections, giving it added significance for walkers completing the full circuit on foot. Visitors today encounter an active place of worship — incense, chanting, and white-robed henro pilgrims — in a quietly forested setting well removed from urban noise.