The healing buddha Bhaisajyaguru enshrined in Wakura──

Taking a hot spring in the middle of the ocean and pumping its waters took quite a bit of work at the time. They also had the obstacle of trying to maneuver water that was constantly 90℃.

One legend says that there was a stone statue of Bhaisajyaguru that had been enshrined in “Yu-no-Tani.” When they laid this Buddha face-down, the water would suddenly calm down. They would move forward with construction and, once finished, place the statue upright again. As soon as they did, the water would start to spout out again.

After the first-stage of construction was finished, the name of the onsen changed to its current characters for Wakura (和倉), meaning “Let’s band together for the sake of the town’s development and all its people”. This is a good way to wrap up its meaning, but there’s yet another theory. The “wa” of Wakura means peace, which is the opposite of that which is wild, and “kura” means warehouse which is meant to “store” the water for the hotspring. The wild waters of the hot spring were calmed thanks to the construction made possible by the effects of Bhaisajyaguru, and the townspeople were able to store the hot springs and control it. That is another explanation of where the name “Wakura” could come from.

The name officially changed in the middle of the 17th century, when people began to manage the ryokan ( an inn attached to the onsen) and Wakura continued to prosper as a hot spring district. However, this was also when a battle for authority of the springs with the yuban-to would go on to last for 200 years.