{Inter} Cultural Japan

Thanks to the popularity of the Tora-san films (Otoko wa Tsurai yo or It is Tough to be a Man), Shibamata has been put firmly on the mental map of the Japanese. Of this long-running cinema series (48 episodes were made from 1969 to 1996) the hero “Tora-san” (played by Atsumi Kiyoshi, 1928 - 1996) was a middle-aged peddler whose family ran a shop selling traditional sweets in Shibamata, in the street leading to the temple.

Although Tora-san had a heart of gold, he was unable to express his feelings, leading to frequent clashes with his family. Moreover, he could not find a stable job and usually got entangled in impossible love affairs. Tora-san embodied the lonely outsider in Japan, the tramp shut out from family happiness, and as such touched the hearts of cinema fans. Shibamata Taishakuten, however, has so much of its own that it does not need Tora-san to attract us.

The Three Worms
Shibamata Taishakuten is really called Daikyoji; it belongs to Nichiren Buddhism. The name originates in the worship of Taishakuten, one of the guardian gods of Buddhism. The temple was founded around 1630. It contained an image of Taishakuten that was believed to have been carved by Nichiren himself on a wooden tablet. This image had been missing for some time, but was found back in 1779 on a koshin-day in the old Japanese calendar.

Therefore, the temple became linked to the koshin faith, which was a mixture of Taoism and popular Buddhism and attracted many believers in the Edo period. Chinese Taoists believed that on the night of a koshin-day the “three worms” dwelling in the human body would escape and report one’s sins to the God of Heaven; punishment consisted of a shortened life. The best remedy was to stay awake all night and so prevent the worms from making their way up to Heaven. This custom - koshin machi, to stay awake on koshin-nights - became widespread among the general population in the Edo-period in Japan and it even seems to exits in abbreviated form today.

The temple’s festival was held annually on a koshin-day, when the Taishakuten image would be carried around town on the back of a priest. In 1783, when harvest failed and there occurred a terrible starvation, the chief priest helped the starving populace and therefore the temple greatly rose in popularity.

Wood Carvings of the Lotus Sutra
From the small station to the temple is only 300 meters and this I find a very pleasant walk through a traditional shotengai, a shopping street characteristic of a monzenmachi or “town before the temple.” Much less touristy than Asakusa, I pass a few shops selling incense, prayer beads and other Buddhist items, dango and rice crackers, and several restaurants serving unagi (eel) and tempura. It is four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon and still full of visitors.

The temple is special thanks to its wood carvings. I find them on the gate, the bell tower and especially on the inner hall of the temple itself. The fragile carvings have been protected by building a glass gallery around them, enabling visitors to have a good look. The carvings are almost three- dimensional. There are dragons and tigers on the pillars, cranes and other birds on the lower panels, heavenly musicians on the higher ones, but most special are ten big boards depicting scenes from the Lotus sutra.

This sutra (text) is central in Nichiren Buddhism, so much that one also speaks of the Lotus sect. In fact, the sutra is also important in other types of Japanese Buddhism, such as Tendai, and is one of the masterpieces of sutra literature. I see how the sutra cures illness; how flowers rain from the sky when the Buddha preaches, etc. Carvings of this type were an Edo craft and the present ones must be the last ones made by artists born in that era: the panels were only finished in the early nineteen-thirties.

I walk around the gallery to the sound of sutra reading inside the hall and soft rhythmical drumming. I also visit the garden behind the temple, which - though modern, with such a non-Japanese element as grass lawns - is very tasteful.

A Downtown Temple Street
Tora-san is also present, at least a man dressed up like him stands in the temple grounds peddling wares from an old brown suitcase. There are many other stalls and peddlers around the temple, perhaps attracted by Tora-san’s fame. I remember the dike along the Edo River from the films, and find it just a few minutes walk behind the temple.

Many films start with Tora walking over this dike, looking at the kids playing baseball in the grounds along the river, just as they are doing today. There are cyclists on the special path provided for them, and people walking their dog.

Older than Tora is the Yagiri no Watashi, a ferry over the Edo River. It originated in the Edo period because farmers would visit their lands on the other side of the river. It is still there, operated for tourists and curious alike, for 100 yen you can cross the river in the small wooden boat seating 10 to 15 people. There is only one thing that disappoints me: the boat is not being peddled but driven by a Yamaha engine.

I return to the street in front of the temple, looking at the shops, buying some small things. The atmosphere is lively and friendly and Tora is everywhere too because this penniless tramp now means business.

But in a different sense it is quite natural to find him here. Tora-san is not a movie character that has been tacked on to Shibamata, but rather he forms the essence of this downtown neighborhood. Gruff but friendly, talkative but unable to express own emotions, always willing to help, like the priest who carried the Taishaku image on his back through the streets of Edo.

The films were born from Shibamata and not the other way around, despite all the Tora souvenirs. And in the center of Shibamata stands, firmly, the temple with the wonderful wood carvings, Taishakuten.

Address: 7-10-3 Shibamata, Katsushika-ku, Tokyo-to.
Tel. 03-657-2886
Access: 3 min. on foot from Shibamata Station on the Keisei Kanamachi Line (take the Keisei Line from Ueno and change trains in Takasago).
Admission: No admission charge to the grounds or temple hall. 400 yen to see the wood carvings and the garden.
Suggestion: In Shibamata visit the Monzenmachi (street leading to the temple) and the Yagiri no Watashi Ferry (100 yen for a single trip). If you cross the river, walk to Yagiri no Watashi Station on the Hokuso Kaihatsu Tetsudo Line (rejoin the normal Keisei Line in Aoto). In the New Year season, it is fun to do the rounds of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune of Shibamata (Shichi Fukujin).