Anrakuji Temple (Shikoku Pilgrimage Temple 6)

Anrakuji Temple was traditionally founded in the 9th century during the Heian period and, like the other temples of the Shikoku Pilgrimage, is linked in tradition to the monk Kukai (Kobo Daishi), who is said to have discovered a hot spring at the site and used its waters to heal weary pilgrims. As the sixth of the 88 official temples on the circuit, Anrakuji sits along the early Tokushima stretch of the route walked by pilgrims departing from Ryozenji, and it remains one of the few temples on the entire pilgrimage with its own onsen hot-spring bathhouse, a legacy of that founding legend still used by staying pilgrims today. The temple's most visually distinctive feature is its multi-tiered pagoda-style main gate, taller and more elaborate than the simple gates typical of most Shikoku pilgrimage temples, marking the transition from the surrounding rice fields into the temple precinct. The main hall enshrines Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of healing, a fitting principal image given the temple's association with therapeutic hot-spring waters. The current temple buildings reflect Edo-period reconstruction, since the original Heian-era structures did not survive the centuries of fire and war common across Shikoku's older religious sites. Anrakuji functions today as both an active place of worship and a shukubo, a temple lodging that houses walking pilgrims overnight, giving the site a continuity of use that some of the more purely ceremonial temples on the circuit lack. Its combination of pagoda gate, healing-Buddha hall, and working bathhouse gives it a distinct character among Tokushima's early pilgrimage temples.