{Inter} Cultural Japan

Dwarfed by the orange obscenity of Tokyo Tower, surrounded by golf ranges and bowling halls, debased by a modern hotel and the stench of traffic before its gate, Zojoji still manages to repeal the onslaught and maintain its character as a great temple. The soothing smell of incense, the serene Amida statue in the Main Hall, the purring windmills in front of the many Jizo statues, these all serve as a refreshing, spiritual shower. Zojoji possessed a special link with the first Tokugawa Shogun, Ieyasu, who moved the temple to its present location and made it into his family temple. Zojoji had originally been founded in 1393 by Shoso, the eight archbishop of Jodo Pure Land Buddhism, and had grown into one of the head-temples of that sect. It continued this tradition into the Edo period and served at the same time as a religious academy.

Favored by successive shoguns, Zojoji flourished. In its heyday, it covered 66 hectares, had 48 temples within its precincts and was home to 3,000 priests. All that glory has been broken in the twentieth century, both by the fires of war and the ravages of modernization. The only building remaining as more than a faint shadow of this former grandeur is the main gate, the Sangedatsumon. It is an imposing red structure, almost 20 meters in width and of the same height, and most visitors make a point to pass through this almost 400 year old gate when entering Zojoji. To the right of the entrance is the venerable temple bell that can be heard on the night of December 31, tolling 108 times to cleanse humans of sins and attachments. Ornamental hairpins owned by imperial concubines were used in the casting, imparting an even sadder tone to it.

The Black Amida
Another treasure of Zojoji is the Black Image of Amida that is kept in the Ankoku Hall. In contrast to the ferro-concrete Main Building (reconstructed in 1974), the Ankoku hall is a wooden structure. The doors of the cabinet housing the Black Amida are opened only three times a year, and as they stand more ajar than being wide open, it is impossible to evaluate the dark shape standing inside. It serves as a reminder that we are not in the world of art here, but that of belief. The Black Amida was the private statue of Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa shogun. Ieyasu is usually depicted as a rather shrewd man, but apparently he also was very religious, and reportedly offered fervent prayers to the Black Amida. As he also was a very successful man, becoming the founder a new shogunal dynasty, people seem to have inferred that his prayers did work. The statue became so popular in the following ages that the incense burned in front of it covered the gold leaf with a layer of black soot. One could say that the statue has been discolored by pleas and prayers, which makes it all the more valuable.

When one visits on this particular day that the shrine is open in the Ankoku Hall, one may well chance upon a Buddhist service. ‘Namu Amida Butsu,’ sings the congregation, praise be the Buddha Amida, a phrase called Nembutsu that is supposed to ensure rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land. This recitation of the Buddha’s name, and concentration upon his virtues, is central to Jodo or Pure Land Buddhism. A priest explains the Junen Nembutsu (nowadays in Japan there are few people who still know these intricacies): the recitation of the Nembutsu ten times in a row. Amida has made a vow to save every person who recites the Nembutsu ten times. The recitation is peculiar: ‘Name Amida Butsu’ is first recited eight times without voicing the ‘tsu’ at the end; then the whole phrase is fully recited in one breath; and the tenth time, the ‘tsu’ is again swallowed and voiced silently.

After this common exercise, the abbot enters in stately clothes (the same pomp of churches all over the world), a brocade cap crowning his head. A drum booms and bells tinkle. After reciting the holy sutras, he reads a list of sponsors, private and public, who have bought protection from the Black Amida. The list is longer than the sutra and contains names of a nearby hotel and several large corporations. In Japan even Buddhism is business.

Bombed Shoguns
On this particular day, too, the Tokugawa cemetery at the back of the temple is open. One has to pass long rows of Jizo statues wearing red bibs and fitted out with mills whirring in the breeze, to get there. The metal door of the graveyard is decorated with dragons and the Tokugawa emblem. Six shoguns and their families have been buried here. Ieyasu himself is buried in the famous Nikko shrine, as is the third shogun Iemitsu. The other shoguns were either buried here or in Ueno’s Kaneiji, while the very last one, Yoshinobu, found his last resting place in the modern Yanaka cemetery.

The simple, green copper grave structures (a square box with a round top and small roof, sitting on a pedestal) remind one of Ieyasu’s tomb in Nikko. In fact, there were more similarities. The second shogun was buried in an impressive mortuary temple, standing next to Zojoji, that was not unlike the temple of the third shogun in Nikko. Fire bombs put an end to its existence in 1945, and also to the Toshogu shrine standing next to the temple. This was a great loss: the author Nagai Kafu had regarded the shogun funerary temples at Zojoji one of the best historical places in Tokyo.

It was not only war that decimated Zojoji. Already in the Meiji period, it lost half of its extensive lands. They were converted into Shiba Park (now not more than a few patches of green between buildings). After the war, the remaining Tokugawa graves were demolished and put together in the present small cemetery, in order to make space for the construction of Tokyo Tower. The Prince Hotel, too, was built on land that originally belonged to the temple. Considering all these ravishes, it is a wonder the temple has managed to survive at all. Though not anymore the great establishment it used to be, with pompous halls and green woods, it is a pocket of rest in the stressful city, a serene refuge from the noise and the haste, making one all the more grateful for its existence.

Address: 4-7-35 Shibakoen Minato-ku, Tokyo-to.
Tel. 03-3432-1431
Access: 10 min. on foot from JR Hamematsucho; 5 min. from Onarimon on the Mita Subway Line and 15 min. from Kamiycho on the Hibiya Subway Line.
Admission: Free.
Treasures: Sangedatsumon Gate (1605, ICP); Somon Gate of former Taitoku-in Reibyo, the funerary temple of the 2nd shogun, Hidetada (1639, ICP); Nitenmon Gate of Yusho-in Reibyo, the funerary temple of the 7th shogun Ietsugu (1717, ICP).