So let’s get on with it. We went to Kamakura last month, having looked it up in Sasha’s rough guide. Kamakura is a small town, about an hour outside of Tokyo but on our side of town, so a shorter time for us from here (at Shin-Yurigaoka) and only about 600 Yen for the tickets each way. There are over 60 temples in Kamakura and about 20 shrines – so as you can imagine, it has a rich history.
From the Kita-Kamakura station (which, by the way, is endlessly cute and charming) you cross over the road and directly before you is the Shokozan Tokeiji Temple. It was founded in 1285 by a nun called Kakusan-ni, who was the widow of Hojo Tokimune. The temple was nicknamed ‘Divorce Temple’ as, at that time, women had no right to seek divorce, and Tokeiji become a sanctuary for women who wanted to file for a divorce, which they could do once they had spent three calendar years in the temple. The special function of the Temple was guarded over the years by various notable nuns, until in 1873 the temple law was adopted by the national court of justice, enabling all women to obtain divorce when they filed for it. Tokeiji ceased to be a nunnery in 1902. I found an article about divorce in the Kamakura Period, which said that, of course, it was very easy for a husband to divorce his wife. The letter he needed to write to file for divorce was called a Mikudarihan – which means ‘three and a half lines notice’, so as you can imagine, a divorce letter could be drawn up and passed very quickly!
The temple is known for its beautiful flowers – on arrival I was given a pamphlet explaining which flowers bloom in the different months of the year. A great many of the flowers in bloom when I visited were purple and blue, in particular the strange berries whose colours were so vibrant they looked like they had been soaked in petrol. There was a great crowd of people trying to photograph these berries, and an excited old Japanese women pulled me over to where she had been standing and showed me which ones were the best to photograph. There were blossoms on the trees, and the gardens were exquisitely put together. I loved the winding stepping-stones that laced through the wooden houses, with worn statues on every patch of grass. In front of the tea house, there was a stone monument, which I later learnt had been erected for an American women named Mrs. Russell. The first Western woman who practiced Zen in Japan, she stayed in the Temple for eight months from July 1902 to March 1903 as a disciple of Priest Shaku, and then the chief priest.
At the back of the temple the garden fades away into a forest of tall trees which climb the hillside, turning into an atmospheric cemetery. As is the tradition in Japan (as well as China), graves are built into the steep hillsides rather than on flat ground – as much space as possible is needed for farm land, and unlike flat ground, the hillsides were no good for growing things, and so that is where they located graves so as not to waste valuable space. The tombs were very pretty, particularly through the dappled sunlight falling through the Japanese maple leaves, which were in the middle of their vibrant, autumnal glory.
Leaving the temple, it was a short walk down the road (which was inexplicably heavily populated by quaint little Italian restaurants) to the Daibutsu Hiking Course. Being more of a fan of ‘gentle strolls’ than arduous hikes, I was pleased to discover that the trail was, from start to finish, little more than 2km – my kind of hike! After a steep beginning (and several trips over the raised tree-roots that looked like bundles of snakes writhing on the floor) we reached the top of the hill and had lunch in the popular picnic area. We also tried our hand at Ma Saru Ishi (negative factors in life – depart – rock) where for 100 Yen you could purchase a little clay plate, and then smash it on a rock. The plate is supposed to symbolize the malign influences in your life, and throwing it on the rock symbolizes the overcoming of life’s obstacles. Mainly it was just fun to smash stuff.
As we left the picnic area, there was a sign indicating that beyond the valley to our right, we could see Mt. Fuji. However, the weather wasn’t clear enough and we couldn’t see a thing. Continuing on, we took a sharp left at the winding junction to see the statue of Minamoto no Yoritomo (源 頼朝), who was the founder and the first shogun of the Kamakura Shogunate of Japan. He ruled from 1192 until 1199. The statue, mounted on a pile of rocks, was pretty impressive – even if his stylised pointy hat made him look a bit like an elf. According to the information sign: The first year of the Bunji era (1185) was the year of the snake. In this year, on the day of the snake, in the month of the snake, Minamoto Yoritomo had a dream in which the god Ugafukujin delivered a divine message. He was told ‘In a valley to the northwest, there is a miraculous spring that gushes out of the rocks. Go there and worship the gods of Shinto, and peace will come to the people.’ He found the spring, as it had been described, and immediately enshrined Ugafukujin. So it is said that the shrine was established, with the spring water being used in Shinto memorial services. It is believed that if you spend money that has been washed in the spring’s water, it will increase many times and come back to you. The spring is one of Kamakura’s five famous waters.
We went down the road to the Zeniarai Benzaiten Ugafuku Jinja Shrine, where you could indeed wash your money in the waters there. People were queuing up with their money in little plastic baskets to be washed and dried, and from the ceiling of the little cave hung strings of origami cranes, strung together like pieces of a jigsaw. The air was thick with incense and wisps of smoke draped themselves around the decorated torii. There were little ponds of giant carp, and dragon statues dressed in red fabric. It was a bustling little amphitheatre, but quiet in its secluded location – it was like section of the hill had been scooped away into this clearing, with steep rock faces on all sides blocking sounds from outside.
Another trek up and over the next hill and we were on the decent towards the Daibutsu (Great Buddha). Housed in the Hase area of Western Kamakura, the Buddha is the town’s most famous landmark, and visitors flock to it. Construction of the bronze statue began in 1252 and it took about ten years to complete it. Necessary funds for the building of the Buddha were collected by a local priest called Joko, who convinced members of the community to donate. It was preceded by a giant wooden Buddha, which was completed in 1243. That wooden statue was damaged by a storm in 1248, and the hall containing it was destroyed, so Jōkō suggested making another statue of bronze. At one time, the statue was gilded, and there are still traces of gold leaf near the statue's ears. The hall which housed the Buddha was destroyed by a storm in 1334, rebuilt, and then was damaged by yet another storm in 1369. It was rebuilt yet again, and the last building housing the statue was washed away in the tsunami of September 20, 1498. Since then the Great Buddha has stood in the open air. Including the base, it is over 13 meters tall and weighs more than 90 tonnes. The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 destroyed the base the statue sits upon, but didn’t harm the mighty statue itself. The statue even has a mention in literature – you’ll see it referred to in Kim by Rudyard Kipling. I found the Buddha very impressive, not least of all because of how old it is, and all the natural disasters it has survived.
Our final bit of sight-seeing in that area was our visit to the Hase-dera Temple. The temple is famous for its statue of Kannon, and the story of how it came to be there. According to local legend, in 721 AD there was a pious monk called Tokudo Shonin who found a large camphor tree in the mountain forests. He saw that the trunk of the tree was so large that it could provide enough material for carving two statues of the eleven-headed Kannon (an East Asian deity of Mercy, known in Chinese as Guanyin.) The statue he commissioned to be carved from the lower part of the truck was enshrined in Hasedera Temple; the larger statue from the upper half was thrown into the sea with a prayer that it would reappear to save the people. Fifteen years later, in 736, it washed ashore at Nagai Beach, not far from Kamakura, sending out rays of light as it did. The statue was then brought to Kamakura and a temple was constructed to honour it.
It was a charming little temple, with immaculately designed gardens of flowing ponds and carved stone. There were stalls of kiku flowers for the chrysanthemum festival, and all sorts of other flora to marvel at. All over the place were little statues, some dresses in red fabric, and others standing together in lines. They are called Jizō statues, which are placed by parents mourning offspring lost to miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion. These statues remain in place at the temple for about a year, before being removed to make way for more statues; it is estimated that some 50,000 Jizō statues have been placed at Hase-dera since WWII. Some were small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, and others were about half a meter tall. From the top of the hill you had excellent views across the bay, and in the benten kutsu cave at the foot of the hill, there were statues devoted to the sea Goddess Benzaiten. At the time of our visit, the Homotsu-kan Museum was closed for renovation. Hase-dera was a beautiful temple, truly enchanting and peaceful despite the crowds, and at only 300 Yen entrance fee it didn’t break the bank either.
That concludes my introduction to the Kamakura hiking trail. We had a lovely time and would recommend making the day trip, even for tourists with a short time in Tokyo itself. Fingers crossed I’ll be able to blog again in the next few days, but until then, sayonara!
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