Buddhism

関西 Mossy Messiah, Cow-Sensei and a Soldier’s Shield

Recently I have visited a number of interesting temples that I have been unable to fit into blog posts, so here I would like to present a small trilogy – two shrines and a temple. Each of them has interesting features and a very different location. We have one shrine in an Osaka old-style alleyway, an apparent anachronistic bubble in an otherwise bustling modern city. We have a shrine all the way in West Kyoto, well-known and popular among locals to the point that they were doing a tv spot there when we visited. Finally we have a shrine tucked away in the middle of Kyoto’s pedestrian covered shopping district, an island dedicated to learning in a commercial sea.

The first of our trilogy is Houzenji 法善寺, a temple located in Osaka near Namba, the popular shopping district. Houzenji, founded in 1686, is located in a small side alleyway that has remained the same for several hundred years. This area is surrounded by high-rise buildings and shops, so the Kyoto-esque old-style alleyway feels a little out-of-place. It is an oasis of old Japan in a modern city.


Houzenji is famous for its ‘Mossy Buddha‘, a Buddha statue completely covered in moss. It is said that the Buddha is mossy because those who did not bring the Buddha an offering would wash their hands to purify themselves and then pray (by clapping their hands) in front of the Buddha with their hands still wet, leading to the Buddha to become damp and grow moss. There is a saying associated with the Buddha 「水をかけて、願もかける」, which requires a small Japanese lesson for you to understand. The Roman alphabet translation reads “mizu o kakete, gan mo kakeru”. Notice the two uses of the verb ‘kakeru’, declined in the present tense in the first half of the phrase. This verb means several things, including ‘to be covered’ and ‘to grant’. Therefore we can translate the phrase as ‘As he is covered in water, he may also grant wishes’, but the wordplay stems from ‘cover’ and ‘grant’ being the same word in Japanese. When looking up the correct translation to the second part of this phrase, I used Google translate with amusing results. I will post my Facebook post on the matter below, as those who are not friends with me on Facebook will find it amusing.


This temple is also famous for the practice of ‘a thousand days of Buddhist prayer’, giving it the common name ‘thousand days temple’ 千日寺. There is a district of Osaka very close by that is named 千日前, meaning ‘in front of a thousand days’ in reference to this temple.

The next temple, Kasuga Jinja 春日神社, is back in Kyoto. I dragged my sister and cousin here for the sole purpose of buying this temple’s stamp book. I had found the book on the internet and, having just finished my last stamp book, simply had to get this one for my next book. It features the deer of the shrine under an arc of leaves. This shrine, as most with deer, is related to the Fujiwara family and is closely linked with Kasuga Taisha 春日大社 in Nara (see blog post here).







Kasuga Jinja was founded by Emperor Junna (ruled 823 – 33) when he abdicated so that he would have a shrine for his protection. This is a fairly large shrine and within its grounds it contains Modoroki Jinja, a shrine that is said to grant travellers safe travel. Many soldiers’ families would come to this shrine to pray for the soldier’s safe return. Those that lived in the shrine’s ward and died in the first Sino-Japanese war are enshrined here. This may explain why this shrine had a politician or some other important person visiting when we visited – there was a camera crew and several people helping out and they were filming him praying at the main shrine, I suspect it had something to do with the soldiers enshrined there.





Kasuga Jinja is also famous for a ‘hoso-ishi‘ or smallpox stone, famous for an event in which a princess contracted smallpox but was cured by the stone. A nice shrine, though not that interesting compared to some in Kyoto, I would recommend it if you happen to be in the area or love the look of their stamp book. The book was 2000円 but definitely worth it in my eyes.


Our final shrine is nestled on Teramachi-doori 寺町通, or Temple Street. This is actually the street I live on; it stretches the whole length of Kyoto as Kyoto is a grid-based city. This shrine is in the shopping district of Teramachi, surrounded by arcades, clothes shops, souvenir shops and restaurants, Nishiki Tenmangu 錦天満宮 is a shrine dedicated to the god of learning, Tenjin. Tenjin was a real person, a scholar of the Heian period, who was so respected and accomplished he has become worshipped as a deity. He is particularly popular among students attempting to pass exams.




Nishiki Tenmangu goes back a fair way – from the outside it looks like it only goes back a few metres but there is actually a whole complex inside. The cow statues in the shrine are due to their association with Tenjin. The story goes that when Tenjin died his funeral cart was pulled by a bull. They reached a certain point on the funeral procession when the bull refused to move any further. Taking this as a sign from the gods, the people founded Tenjin’s first shrine at that spot. Today there are many shrines to Tenjin throughout Japan – I have already been to at least 3!




Enshrined alongside Tenjin is another important Heian period scholar, Minamoto no Toru (822 – 895). He was a poet and a statesman, famous for his poem that appears in the collection of 100 Japanese poems. The poem reads thus:

みちのくの
しのぶもぢずり
誰故に

乱れそめにし
我ならなくに

Michinoku no
Shinobu moji-zuri
Tare yue ni
Midare-some nishi
Ware naranaku ni.

Like Michinoku prints,
Of the tangled leaves of ferns,
It is because of you,
That I have become confused;
But my love for you remains.

Michinoku prints are complexly patterned prints made by placing vine leaves on fabric and pressing them onto the silk to leave a mark. The word ‘shinobu’  しのぶ in the second line has multiple meanings, including ‘a vine’, ‘to love’ and ‘to hide’, adding extra meaning to the poem.





Nishiki Tenmangu was originally connected to a Buddhist temple, but they were separated during the Meiji period due to the state policy of separating Buddhism and Shinto. Its proximity to Nishiki market (see post) gave it the name ‘Nishiki Tenmangu’. All shrines dedicated to Tenjin are called ‘Tenmangu’. This shrine also has slightly creepy karakuri puppets for its fortune-telling. These are old-style automatically moving puppets, popular from the 17th – 19th Century.




This brings us to the end of our trilogy, I hope you found these temples interesting. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – even the smallest temples in Japan are interesting and many have a history or folk tale behind them that is more interesting than the founding tales of a lot of the big temples.

天龍寺 Imperial Exile, Dragon Dreams, and the Price of Power

I visited Tenryuji a while ago when my sister and cousin were visiting. Tenryuji is one of those temples that is both beautiful and has a rich history. This temple tells a tale of enemies united after battle, of a shrewd monk and of the start of a new Shogunate.

Tenryuji 天龍寺, meaning ‘heavenly dragon temple’, was founded by Ashikaga Takauji in 1339. Takauji had just become Shogun, the very first of the Ashikaga shogunate which would last over 200 years. As one would expect of a great Shogun, he had commissioned the construction of Tenruji, a magnificent temple, to commemorate the recently deceased Emperor. However, all is not as it appears in this founding moment. Ashikaga and the late Emperor GoDaigo had been friends before becoming enemies, an enmity that would divide the Japanese imperial court in two for 60 years.



This begins with the accession of Emperor GoDaigo to the Chrysanthemum Throne. He had always looked back on the times of direct imperial rule as a golden age, and intended from the start to overthrow the ruling Kamakura shogunate and take back imperial power. The Kamakura shogunate heard of his plans and exiled GoDaigo, replacing him with a more compliant Emperor. He planned in exile, gathering forces. One of those that allied themselves with GoDaigo was Ashikaga Takauji.



Godaigo marched on Kyoto and established himself once again as Emperor, sending forces to remove the Kamakura shogunate. This move was successful and GoDaigo set about reestablishing direct imperial rule. However, Takauji was nervous and feared samurai rebellion (and probably wanted a slice of power for himself). When there was a rebellion in Kamakurea, Takauji set off to put it down but took Kamakura for himself, declaring himself shogun. Though he said he allied himself with the imperial court in Kyoto, his old friend GoDaigo denounced him, declaring that he should be executed.



GoDaigo sent forces to overthrow Takauji’s new Ashikaga shogunate, but they failed. Takauji’s forces marched on Kyoto but were defeated. He regrouped for a year before trying again, this time victorious. GoDaigo’s court was exiled to the South, establishing themselves as a rival court to the Ashikaga’s new Emperor Komyo. Thus started the period of Nanbokucho, or ‘North and South courts’.



When GoDaigo died, Takauji had Tenryuji founded in his honour by the most famous monk of the time (and his personal friend) Muso Soseki. This attempt to honour the late Emperor suggests that though he betrayed him to seek power, there was a great deal of respect between these two men. In fact, Ashigaka Takauji is praised by Muso Soseki as fearless, merciful and very generous, the last two characteristics are slightly unexpected of one who’s life story is so shaped by his quest for power. Perhaps this veneration of GoDaigo was a sign of his true feelings of friendship towards the exiled Emperor.



Tenryuji had beautiful gardens as well as a special room with a huge dragon painted on the ceiling. This dragon was painted to commemorate the 650th anniversary of the death of Muso Soseki, the monk that founded the temple. Muso Soseki was a teacher, calligrapher, poet and garden designer (and of course a monk). He allied himself with the Ashikaga family before they had fully taken power, shrewdly putting himself in a great position. He helped to spread zen Buddhism throughout Japan during the Ashikaga shogunate, helping to legitimise the shogunate and bolster the power of his religion. We were not allowed to take pictures inside the ceiling room, so here is one I found on the web to give you an idea.


The obsession with dragons at Tenryuji goes back to its founding. It was originally named Ryakuo Shiseienji, but Takauji Ashikaga’s brother dreamed of a golden dragon around the time it was founded. This was taken as a sign and the name was changed to Tenryu Shiseizenji instead. Tenryu 天龍 means ‘heavenly dragon’.



Tenryuji played an important role in the history of Japan; Japan’s courts refused to submit to the Chinese tributary system, which would see Japan as a junior in the relationship. Tenryuji did submit to the tributary system and became the link between Japan and Ming China for trade. This bolstered Zen Buddhism’s power greatly, as they were effectively controlling trade with one of Japan’s most important trade partners. In return China chose the abbot of Tenryuji. This arrangement lasted until the 19th century; though there are periods where historians claim Japan was ‘closed off’ to the outside world, the truth is there were several unofficial channels, such as the link at Tenryuji, which remained open.





Tenryuji also has a number of sub temples, some of which are open to the public. We stopped by Kogenji 弘源寺, a temple dedicated to Kannon founded in 1429. The temple pillars have cuts in the wood from samurai testing the sharpness of their swords during the Hamaguri rebellion of 1864. These were pro-imperial forces that were seeking to restore direct imperial rule through capturing the emperor (not entirely sure how that would work). They failed and a lot of Kyoto got set on fire, which seems to be the default result of anything happening in pre-modern Kyoto.



There we had tea and a small sweet. It was a lovely experience – the temple garden was pretty and it had a small display of screens and other artefacts (sadly no photos).



Tenryuji is well worth a visit, and you can incorporate it into a day trip to Arashiyama; there is also the bamboo grove (which I will write about soon!) and the monkey park (which I have written about here). This temple is a UNESCO world heritage site and one of Kyoto’s 5 main Zen temples. It can be a little expensive to go around all the sections – the ceiling room, the gardens and the main building inside all cost 500円 (£2.70) each. We did not do the insides of the temple as you can pretty much see most of it from the outside. The gardens and the ceiling are worth it in my opinion.