{Inter} Cultural Japan

It is a dry wintry day when we come to Higashi-Murayama for our visit to Anrakuji. We have found a walking route to the temple from the station, that passes the famous Yoshimi tunnel tombs on the way. We come as much to see these almost prehistoric caves as the temple.

Of course, caves and temple are not unrelated. After Buddhism had entered Japan, it gradually took over the function of care for the dead. This custom was firmly established from the early eight century, when the first member of the imperial house was cremated and buried according to Buddhist rites. So it is not strange to find a temple in the immediate vicinity of an early tomb cluster.

A strait road leads out of the small town towards the Ichinokawa river. We soon see the caves at the opposite bank: a cliff of soft stone, fragmented with holes, like a Swiss cheese. The brown hill, with some bare trees on it, stands out against the pale blue winter sky.

[The pockmarked Yoshimi Hill]

It is Sunday and there are several couples and even whole families clambering over the hill and glancing into the holes. The official name is Yoshimi Hyakketsu, the Hundred Caves of Yoshimi. The mystery of these caves, their origin and purpose, already occupied the Japanese more than a century ago.

The impetus for research came from the American Edward Morse (1838-1925), who was the first to undertake scientific excavations in Japan (he excavated the Omori Shell mound in 1877). Morse visited Yoshimi in 1882 and thought the caves were Korean graves.

The first Japanese to investigate them was the anthropologist Tsuboi Shogoro 1887. He considered them as cave dwellings. Modern scholars are unanimous in their opinion that these holes are not dwelling caves, but graves. There are more than 200 of them and archeologically they fall into the category of “tunnel graves.” They are dated to the 6th and 7th centuries CE and probably served as burial places for whole families.

Paths with steps lead up and down over the face of the hill. The holes have been dug from bottom to top, although at the top they are fewer in number and at the same time larger in size. All caves have a similar structure: they start with a narrow passageway that leads to a square inner room with a platform. The platform served to receive the coffins. Burial items and skeletal remains were also found.

[Hundred Graves of Yoshimi]

We clamber over the necropolis. The holes are all empty now, but death is still there in the barren soil and leafless trees. It is time for the consolation of Buddhism, so we head for the temple.

A path leads around the cliff and brings us to a road that meanders through the fields, along low farmhouses. It is pleasant going until the road abuts on a main road that is choked with traffic. We walk along the side of this busy road, in the dust that swirls up after the cars and fighting the petrol stench. We are glad when a sign points left into a what is again a quiet road.

[Anrakuji’s Pagoda]

Anrakuji
When we climb the steps to the temple, the dust of the world falls away. The temple has been set back far enough from the busy road to be at peace. The temple gate is apparently under repair; it has been taken away completely, so we enter Anrakuji’s spacious grounds without symbolically passing through the gateless gate. A statue of the Buddha Amida dating from 1790 sits smiling at us in the courtyard.

The temple legend tells that Gyoki, that omnipresent temple founder, carved an image of the Kannon here; when the image refused to move from this spot, it was sealed in a cave. The temple proper was founded somewhat later (reputedly in 806) by the famous generalissimo Sakanoue no Tamuromaro, when passing through the area on his way to subdue the tribes of northern Japan. When the general had the cave opened, the Kannon emitted a light, reminding the fighting man of the Sun Goddess, who likewise was once sealed in a cave.

In the twelfth century, the temple was restored by a leader of the Minamoto clan, Noriyori, who had a castle in this area (until his suspicious half-brother, the new shogun Yoritomo, had him murdered). The present buildings date from the seventeenth century. The same is true for the beautiful pagoda that stands to the right of the temple. It is lacquered in deep red. We come across two persons who are making a pencil sketches of the building. At the back of the main hall we find a small grotto, modern and plastered over with concrete, apparently created there to give body to the founding legend.

[Amida Buddha in the grounds of Anrakuji]

The temple belongs to the 33 Kannon Pilgrimage of Eastern Japan, a series of temples that were selected in the 12th and 13th centuries, when the faith in Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy, a manifestation of the Buddha Amida, was in the ascendance. The goddess was very popular among warriors and so the pilgrimage took quickly shape in the Kanto area, after a similar course that had been laid out in the Kansai. The big time of the Kannon pilgrimages came in the Edo period when also ordinary folk would set out on these religious courses.

Also today the 33 Kannon course is still popular, although nobody makes the round on foot and neither in the prescribed order. Such things do not matter, as long as the intention is good. At the temple office we too go to receive a stamp in our pilgrimage book.

The sun stands low in the sky when we are finished and a cold wind starts blowing. There is no sign of spring yet, although it must be around the corner. We call a taxi to return to Higashi-Murayama Station. The route we walked the whole afternoon is now traversed in only ten minutes. The busy, dirty road has become an ordinary highway that carries us comfortably into town.

It is a change of perspective that shows how one-sided the world has become.

Temple Name: Anrakuji (Yoshimi Kannon).
Denomination: Shingon Buddhism.
Foundation: Trad. in 804 by Sakanoue no Tamuromaro, after an earlier foundation by Gyoki.
Address: 374 Gosho, Yoshimi-cho, Hiki-gun, Saitama-ken.
Access: 15 min. by taxi from Higashi-Murayama Station on the Tobu Tojo Line. 40 min. on foot from the Yoshimi Caves, which in their turn are 30 min. on foot from the station.