Japan Tokyo — Benzaiten Temple

Back to the Beginning Tokyo — Higashi-Ueno District The Strange World of Manga Tokyo — Kiyomizu Kannon-dō Temple and Ueno-Kōen Park Tokyo — Benzaiten Temple Tokyo — Rinnō-ji Temple Nikkō — Tochigi Prefecture Logistics, what I was doing there, Russian MW radio stations audible in Japan, and maps

Benzaiten Temple

At left, you are looking toward Benzaiten Buddhist temple from the top of the steps leading down from Kiyomizu Kannon-dō temple in Ueno-kōen park.

The Benzaiten temple is on a former island, now reached by a stone causeway, in the small lake Shinobazu-ike.

The narrow causeway provides easy access. The causeway is lined with food vendors in the afternoons. It's a nice place for a stroll while watching all the locals doing the same thing.

Stone lanterns and statues line the causeway leading to the Benzaiten Temple.

Later in the day this will be busy with the many visitors. Food vendors will set up stands along here with snacks and light meals.

This is the exterior of the Benzaiten temple. Benzaiten is the Buddhist goddess of the arts, knowledge and wisdom. People today make offerings in hope of success in examinations and general good fortune. It was built by the daimyo or feudal lord Mizunoya Katsutaka in the early 1600s. The temple was on what was then an island, and access was by boat. By the late 1600s a stone causeway had been constructed.

The chōzuya is seen at left.

A chōzuya is a water trough with ladles to ritually purify your hands and mouth before entering the temple.

Below you see the incense burner at the base of the steps leading into the temple.

Here is a closer view of the chōzuya.

The metal ladles rest on a bamboo shaft laid across the stone water trough.

A visiting worshipper has dressed a statue of the Buddhist diety Jizō with a red bib.

The statue represents Jizō, who is often depicted as a monk with a staff in one hand and a jewel in the other. A red bib on a Jizō figure is an attempt to cover the soul of a dead child.

This Shintō shrine is adjacent to the Buddhist temple.

Shintō religious facilities are shrines, while Buddhism uses temples.

Shintō and Buddhism have generally co-existed peacefully within Japan. A significant exception was during the Meiji period (1868-1912 AD) when nationalist fervor led to "State Shintō" as a state religion and Buddhism was placed under severe restrictions.

The Allied occupation of Japan after World War II led to the abolition of the State Shintō which had promoted the divinity of the Emperor and the racial uniqueness and superiority of Japan.

Shintō is a form of animistic polytheism and involves the worship of kami or spirits. Some kami are local spritual beings of a particular place, others represent natural objects and processes such as Amaterasu, the Sun goddess, or Mount Fuji.

Visitors to a Shintō shrine will typically pull a heavy cord to ring a bell or gong, summoning the local diety. They will pray, then clap their hands twice and back away from the shrine. The clapping is said to have the function of getting the attention of the ill-defined and apparently inattentive diety. Shintō today seems more of a national theme activity than an actual religion; something to hang nationalism on, not something to practice except in a rather low-key way.

Buddhism, on the other hand, is not so much a religion as a philosophy that can be very compatible with other religious belief.

Japan

Back to the Beginning Tokyo — Higashi-Ueno District The Strange World of Manga Tokyo — Kiyomizu Kannon-dō Temple and Ueno-Kōen Park Tokyo — Benzaiten Temple Next — Tokyo — Rinnō-ji Temple Nikkō — Tochigi Prefecture Logistics, what I was doing there, Russian MW radio stations audible in Japan, and maps

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