Tokyo Health Shrines: Access and more info
Here's more in-depth access info for Sugamo; Zojoji and Onarimon Shiba Dai Jingu plus the names of several other famous health shrines AND one I didn't have room to add, Okusawa.
Several other shrines and temples around the city are also well known for their health benefits, especially Taishakuten Temple in Shibamata and Arai Yakushi Temple in Nakano. Actually, every shrine worth its purified sacred salt has a health charm for sale.
Access for Koganji: Sugamo Station, JR Yamanote Line. Take the main exit out, cross the big intersection and walk to your right, past McDonald's. The entrance to Jizo Dori and the pedestrian mall leading to Koganji is just beyond. Note, the big temple – impressive as it is – at the start of the street is not Koganji. Keep going about another 100 yards. It's on your right.
Access for Zojoji: Onarimon Station, Mita line, A4 exit. Walk to your left along the busy street for about five minutes or so. You can't miss the entrance to Zojoji on the opposite side of the street.
For Shiba Dai Jingu: with Zojoji's main gate at your back, cross at the intersection and proceed under the small ornate temple gate right on the busy little street. Cross at the light beyond the gate. A few yards straight ahead, turn left at the Seven Eleven /Resona Bank. The shrine is around the next corner to your left.
Access for Gojo Tenjin: Ueno Station, exit for Ueno Koen. (Yamanote, Ginza or Hibiya lines). Cross the street in front of the station and walk down the main access road past the Museum of Western Art to the intersection with the Koban police box and cafe terraces on your right. Turn left and walk about 100 yards until you see the stone torii followed by a colorful line of bright red torii gates. Take this very photographic path down the hill. The first shrine on your right is Hanazono Inari, dedicated to the God of Rice. Gojo Ten is the large, dark wooden building just beyond with stone lion dogs instead of foxes on guard.
Several other shrines and temples around the city are also well known for their health benefits, especially Taishakuten Temple in Shibamata and Arai Yakushi Temple in Nakano. Actually, every shrine worth its purified sacred salt has a health charm for sale.
Access for Koganji: Sugamo Station, JR Yamanote Line. Take the main exit out, cross the big intersection and walk to your right, past McDonald's. The entrance to Jizo Dori and the pedestrian mall leading to Koganji is just beyond. Note, the big temple – impressive as it is – at the start of the street is not Koganji. Keep going about another 100 yards. It's on your right.
Access for Zojoji: Onarimon Station, Mita line, A4 exit. Walk to your left along the busy street for about five minutes or so. You can't miss the entrance to Zojoji on the opposite side of the street.
For Shiba Dai Jingu: with Zojoji's main gate at your back, cross at the intersection and proceed under the small ornate temple gate right on the busy little street. Cross at the light beyond the gate. A few yards straight ahead, turn left at the Seven Eleven /Resona Bank. The shrine is around the next corner to your left.
Access for Gojo Tenjin: Ueno Station, exit for Ueno Koen. (Yamanote, Ginza or Hibiya lines). Cross the street in front of the station and walk down the main access road past the Museum of Western Art to the intersection with the Koban police box and cafe terraces on your right. Turn left and walk about 100 yards until you see the stone torii followed by a colorful line of bright red torii gates. Take this very photographic path down the hill. The first shrine on your right is Hanazono Inari, dedicated to the God of Rice. Gojo Ten is the large, dark wooden building just beyond with stone lion dogs instead of foxes on guard.
Taishakuten Temple in Shibamata
Like Koganji in Sugamo, Taishakuten has a sacred statue people wash and scrub for health.
Okusawa Jinja: Oh for goodness snakes!
Back in the Edo era, a plague was ravaging the countryside. In a dream, the Shinto kami (god/spirit) Hachiman-sama appeared to the village chief of Okusawa and told him to make a huge serpent of straw out of newly harvested rice. The people must dance with the serpent through the streets of the village and the kami would imbue it with power to chase away the sickness.
Doctor's will cringe at the kami's medical methodology but the spirit knew its snaky stuff. Miracle or not, the plague was banished and Okusawa has held a festival here during the autumn rice harvest time in September ever since. Though since Okusawa is now nestled next to fashionable shopping/dining hub Jiyugaoka, they have to go much farther afield to find it.
Traditionally the serpent spends the year wound around the torii gate where it acts as a Yakuyoke spirit — one that banishes misfortune and illness. At Okusawa, the mere act of walking under the snake and then offering a prayer is enough to speed good health on its way. Or so the legend goes.
Staring up at the serpent, it's hard not to notice the bulging eyes, thick fringe of bangs and floppy ears. Something most snakes don’t have in general.
A priest explained, though it’s called Daija (giant serpent), the snake is actually in the process of transforming into a dragon, which is what makes it so powerful. Eastern dragons are elemental spirits so very unlike their ravenous Western counterparts. On the temple grounds, deep in the back, is a small, rocky cave. The entrance holds cups of sake and other offerings. This is the home of the resident dragon spirit and one reason little Okusawa has such backbone – celestially speaking.
Access: Okusawa Station, Meguro Line. Exit the little station and walk to your right, across the tracks to the next traffic light. The shrine entrance is right across the street.
