Location: 10 kilometers northwest of Odawara Station of Tokaido Line, East JR or Shinkansen (Bullet train). Or 3.5 kilometers southwest of Daiyuzan Station, Daiyuzan Line of Izu Hakone Railway
Time needed to get there:40 minutes walk from Daiyuzan Station, or
15 minutes by bus.
The founding priest Ryo-an-Emyo was born in Kanagawa Prefecture and took Buddhist vows in his youth. He once studied Buddhism at Engakuji in Kamakura and practiced Zazen, or sit-in meditation, at Sojiji in Ishikawa Prefecture. Later, he learned Zen Buddhism under the guidance of Priest Tsugen-Jakurei (1323-1391) at Yotakuji
in northern Hyogo Prefecture. At one time he took the chair of the chief
priest of Sojiji, but left Sojiji at age 57 and retuned to his hometown
Soga in Odawara, where he secluded himself at a hermitage called Jikudo-an.
(Jikudo is literally India).
Legend narrates that one day he was drying washed kesa, or a Buddhist surplice, in the sun when an eagle flew down and picked
it up, flying away toward Mt. Myojin in Hakone mountains. Since the kesa was given by Priest Tsugen as his keepsake,
Priest Ryo-an wanted to retrieve it by all
possible means. He went toward the mountain
in search of the kesa. Going through the dense forest, he finally found it hanging on top of a pine tree. The Kesa was hung too high to catch. He began to sit-in meditation at the root
of the tree. A little while later, the kesa fell quietly on his shoulder. He interpreted this experience as a divine
revelation telling him to erect a temple right there, and made up his mind
to follow the revelation.
He recalled that he had a reliable disciple named Myokaku-Doryo (his date
of birth and death unknown) back at the time he was the chief priest at
Sojiji, and Doryo once saying, "If there is anything I can do for
you, let me know. I would be most happy to help you." Priest Doryo
used to be the leader of some 800 priests who were practicing asceticism
at Mii-dera in Shiga Prefecture, and known for his Herculean strength.
Hearing Priest Ryo-an was in need of help, he rushed to the Priest Ryo-an's
hermitage and started to help build the Temple. His physical strength was
just marvelous, cutting giant trees easily and lifting up huge stones as
if they were made of cotton. In amazement, people said he was like Japanese
Hercules, almost equal to the power of 500 men. Construction of the Temple
was completed within a year in 1394. Everyone believed the Temple would
not have been erected that early had it not been for his help.
Seventeen years later in 1411, Priest Ryo-an passed away. Overwhelmed with grief, Priest Doryo Myokaku said, "I no longer want to be in this world. Hereafter, I will be the guardian deity of this temple," and flew up to the sky transforming himself into a Tengu, and giving rise to a storm of fire. A Tengu is a mystical creature in Japanese folklore
that inhabits in steep mountains and deep
valleys, whose most distinctive feature is
an extremely long nose with long beak and
wings on a man's body. It is a half-man,
half-bird creature.
With this legend, Priest Myokaku-Doryo was called Doryo-satta (satta is a Bodhisattva) and enshrined at Goshinden in the Temple. In addition, the Temple was more commonly referred to as
Doryo-son (Son is an honorific suffix for Buddha and Bodhisattva) by the locals and the
faithful than its official name of Saijoji.
In erecting the Temple, necessary funds were donated by Yoriaki Omori (
?-1405), chief of a powerful clan in Oyama in northeastern Shizuoka Prefecture,
who was then controlling the western region of Kanagawa Prefecture and
built the Odawara Castle. Not only did the Omori family continue to support the Temple financially, but also become adherents of the Soto Zen and many samurai of the clan followed suit. The Tenth Chief Priest Anso, for example, was a grandson of Yoriaki. Later in 1495, the Omori was destroyed by the Go-Hojo clan (See Ryuhoji for details). However, the Go-Hojo also patronized the Temple and helped
build new structures. The Temple was protected, more or less, by the Shogunate
then in power through the Edo Period (1603-1868).
Located in rather remote and rural area, it was inconvenient for the devout
to repair to the Temple until the early Meiji Period (1868-1912). After
the railroad line was expanded in 1889 from Kozu Station of the Tokaido
Line to the west by way of Matsuda and Yamakita Stations (today's Gotenba
Line), visitors and worshipers began to flock since distance between the
Temple and the two stations was only several kilometers. In 1925, another
railroad (Daiyuzan Line of Izu-Hakone Railway) was constructed connecting
Odawara to a town near the Temple. Unfortunately, the railroad company
had to suffer heavy loss with fewer passengers than had been planned. Then,
the savior emerged. The world-famous Fujifilm Co. began to construct a factory near here in 1932 and it started operation in 1934. Passengers increased sharply and the railroad company extended its line to today's Daiyuzan Station, from where the Temple is only 2 kilometers distant.
The Temple quietly sits at the foot of Mt. Myojin, and preserves serene temple atmospheres. Judging from its scale, it seems natural that the Temple should rank third in the entire Soto Sect temples next to Eiheiji in Fukui Prefecture and Sojiji in Yokohama.
Approach From the Ni-o-mon (Vajra-pani in Sanskrit) gate to the Temple entrance leads off a beautifully
maintained walkpath through the quiet woods for about two kilo meters.
I have been visiting the Temple at least once a year for over a dozen years
always walking this fantastic path. I meet only a handful of visitors going
up and down on foot even at weekends. However, the Temple is crowded in
the autumn foliage season. Most of them come here by bus, which connects
the Temple to Daiyuzan Station every 20 or 30 minutes. Almost parallel
to the walkpath is a driveway, on which buses are running with a full load
of passengers. Today's people do not really like to walk.
The woods are covered mainly with giant Japanese cedar (cryptmenia). They look like old growth often seen in the West Coast of North America. At some point of the walkpath, they were so huge that I feel as if I were in the Muir Woods, the redwood forest in California. (Frankly, trees in Japanese forests are rather thin by the American standard. s are rather like those in Scandinavia.) In the 26 hectare woods, there are 20,000 cedars, and the largest one measures 7 meters in girth and 45 meters high. ` of those cedars are not natural growth but were planted years ago. The cedar plantation started right after the Temple's founding, and therefore, oldest ones are roughly 600 years old. To preserve the woods, felling the trees were strictly prohibited in early times. If anyone felled a tree, he was punished with death and if anyone broke off a branch, his arm was cut off.
With its natural beauty, the Prefecture of Kanagawa designated the forest
as a Natural Monument.
Structures: The Temple complex has nearly 30 structure.
Listed below are the major ones:
Main Hall (Picture; right)
Rebuilt in 1954, it is called Gokoku-den in Japanese, meaning to keep the state in peace. The 27 by 21.6 meter
hall enshrines a trio statues of ShakaNyorai (Sakyamuni in Skt.) and its two attendants.
In other words, the statue of Shaka Nyorai in the center flanked by Monju Bosatsu (Manjusri Bodhisattva in Skt. denoting wisdom and intellect) at its left
(to your right) and Fugen Bosatsu (Samantabhadra Bodhisattva in Skt. Bosatsu of brightness) at its right (to your left), this group of three statues
makes the Shaka Trinity, or Shaka Sanzon in Japanese. In the hall, there are several
chrysanthemum insignias appearing on the
pillar and transoms. Probably, the Temple
was onetime patronized by the Imperial Family.
The Temple's official insignia is a round
fan.
Hall for Founding Priests, or Kaisan-do Standing next to (or west of) the main hall
is the hall for the founding priests, often
called Kaisan-do, and in the case of the Temple, it is called
Kongo-ju-in. It was rebuilt in 1961, the year of the 550th anniversary of the Temple's
founding, to the memory of Ryo-an-Emyo, the founding priest, and his statue,
together with mortuary tablets of all chief priests, is enshrined.
Taho-to Taho-to built in 1863 is a two-story building, the
ground floor with square structure and the
second floor with round one, which is consecrated
to Taho Nyorai (Prabhutaratna in Skt.). Buried under the
building are ashes of major chief priests
of the Temple. Taho-to is often seen at the temples of the Esoteric Buddhism like the one in Kongobuji in Wakayama Prefecture. Top page of Kongobuji website shows a colorful
Taho-to. Before the Meiji Imperial Restoration of 1868, Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine in Kamakura had a giant taho-to in its precincts as it was a huge complex of Shingon Sect Buddhism and Shinto. It is rare for the temples in Kanagawa to have
the structure this size, much less in Zen temples.
Goshin-den, or Hall for Doryo-son
Built in 1934, it is also called Myokaku-ho-den, dedicating to Priest Doryo. The main object of worship in this hall is
Doryo-satta. A pair of giant Tengu statues are installed at the two sides of
the hall to guard the Satta against all evils
just like Ni-o of the Ni-o mon gate seen at usual temples. Tengu is a legendary creature believed to live
deep in mountains or a god of mountain as
noted above. Since they all have in common
an abnormally long nose, white beard, carrying
a round feather fan (which is the Temple's
emblem) in his hand and wear a pair of clogs
of high support, it is often compared to
Yamabushi due to their appearance. Yamabushi practice ascetic discipline in the steep
mountains that were believed to be the dwelling
place of gods and practicing ascetic disciplines
in the depth of certain mountains would give
them holly and magical powers. Those in here
are called Karasu (crow) Tengu as their appearance with a pair of wings
indicates and a beak-like mouth. Legend holds
that Doryo-son fled away at the death of
the founding priest, saying he would be the
guardian deity of the Temple. Statues of
Karasu Tengu can be seen here and there in the Temple grounds. Karasu Tengu are also seen at Kenchoji in Kamakura.
Okuno-in, or Innermost sub-temple Further west are stairs of stone steps, more
than 700, leading up to the sub-temple called
Okuno-in, also called Ji-unkaku on top of a hill. Enshrined in this 55-square-meter structure is a statue
of Eleven-Headed Kan'non, or Ekadasamukha in Skt., which is believed to
be a manifestation of Doryo-son.It was rebuilt in 1968.
Giant Geta, or Clogs and Karasu Tengu Unique in the Temple is that more than one hundred pairs of clogs, large and small, are displayed in the grounds. A pair of clogs are old Japanese footwear made of wood and worn with kimono in less formal cases. Those clogs on display here are made of iron and dedicated by the devout to the Tengu, or Priest Doryo. Some of them are as high as two meters. Those pairs of clogs are believed to symbolize a conjugal harmony, and folklore belief has it that a pregnant woman would have an easy delivery if she pass under the high supports.
Shoho-den, or Treasure House It stands at the other side of the main hall. The two-story structure,
built in 1973, houses a one-tenths scale model of the old Goshin-den right in the center of the upper floor.
It is of exquisite workmanship made by carpenters
specifically trained for constructing temples
and shrines. On view other than the model
are hanging scrolls depicting the hell, Kan'non (Avalokitesvara in Skt.), Fugen (Samantabhadra Bodhisattva in Skt.), Monju (Manjusri Bodhisattva in Skt.) etc. A sedentary statue of Priest Tsugen is also displayed, which is very similar to those that are often seen at Zen temples in Kamakura. Statues of a dozen Rakan, or Arhat in Skt., all of them roughly 50 centimeters tall, are displayed.
Rakan is the Lord Buddha's immediate disciples who attained Nirvana. In general,
the Temple has few ICA-class treasures, and no literatures refers to the
sculptors of the statues enshrined in the Temple, or when they were made.
Admission: Free
Notes: Tales of Nun Eshun-ni
Tales relating to a beautiful nun of the Temple have long been handed down
from generation to generation. She was a younger sister of the founding
priest Ryo-an Emyo. At age a little over 30, she asked her brother Emyo
to be enrolled in the Temple as a nun. The priest gave her a flat refusal
saying that Buddhism is not easy to deal with and not the world for a woman
to be engaged. The sister's resolution was firm. To show how firm, she
appeared before him with a pair of red-hot tongs and burned her cheek to
demonstrate she would risk her life. She also said, "Why can't women
do what men do?" Knowing her determination was unshakable, Priest
Ryoan had no choice but to enroll her as a nun. He may have recalled the
tale of Maha-prajapati, aunt of Sakyamuni who entered nunhood despite Sakyamuni's
refusal.
Her departure as Nun Eshun-ni (ni denotes a nun in Japanese) began to pose a serious problem, however, among
the young male priests in the male-dominated Temple. She was a woman of
extraordinary beauty and voluptuous. Even the priests in the Temple who
otherwise were supposed to be strictly abstinent were unable to resist
temptation. Many came courting. One of them met her in person at the hermitage
where she was living alone, and said, "I will do whatever you say
if I can have an affair with you." She replied, "Come to
my hermitage every night for the 100th day in a row. Your wishes will be
answered on the 100th night." The young priest began to commute
to her hermitage every night, rain or shine, just to report he was there
and she acknowledged his visit every night. She may have thought he would
give up halfway, but he made a trip for the 99th consecutive night successfully
and it was now obvious he would make it. Having an affair is the last thing
a nun is allowed to do, and she had no intention to behave anything immoral.
She was put in a awkward position. Before the priest appeared on the 100th
night, she had piled up firewood around her hermitage and confirming the
priest's visit, she set it alight. Surrounded by the blaze, she killed
herself in a sit-in meditation, or Zazen posture. Rather than breaking the nun's code, she chose death. Burning
oneself to death is called Kajo in Buddhist term and there have not been many a case in the past, let
alone in the case of nuns.
Another story goes like this. A young priest persistently wooed her. Out
of resignation, she said to him one day, "This is not a proper place
nor proper time. I will let you know as soon as an opportunity offers."
The young priest was happy to hear it and looked forward to the chance,
but it did not come soon. He grew wearily of waiting. Days later, all young
priests were summoned in a hall for a meeting. This was the opportunity
she had had in mind. At the end of the meeting, she appeared before the
scores of priests, and began to undress. Now with no clothes on, she pointed
to the priest who had been wooing her, and said, "Come over here.
Your wish will be answered right here. Now, you can do to me whatever you
want." The disgraced priest had to leave the Temple immediately.
Since there is no record on her daily behaviors, her false episode goes even further. At one point, Priest Ryoan sent the nun on an errand to Engakuji in Kamakura , where, as noted at the beginning of this page, he learned Buddhism when young. Her beauty had already been well known to the priests in Engakuji. They eagerly looked forward to her visit. On the day of her arrival, they waited for her in line. As she walked by the welcoming priests, one of them stepped forward and exposed his erected penis in front of her, and said, "Mine is as long as 90 centimeters. What about your vagina, show us yours, will you?" Unruffled, she said calmly," Mine is bottomless," and kept walking in stride.
A charming nun surrounded by young priests
in abstinence seem to be an interesting theme
for playwrights and painters like in the
West. The nun's tales were dramatized and
painted by many artists. Most of them are
fictional and are Japanese versions of The
Nun's Story. It is evident from the Temple's
records, however, that the nun was younger
sister of Priest Ryoan and was of rare beauty,
and killed herself with Kajo in 1402 at age around 37. A Kajo stone, near where she performed Kajo, is preserved in the Temple's grounds.
In June 1963, a priest in Vietnam named Thich Quang Duc committed a kajo suicide in front of Saigon's American Embassy in protest against government's
crack down on Buddhists. He sprinkled gas on himself and set fire.
A priest in an ill humor
To look into the Temple's backgrounds, I searched literatures on the Temple
at various libraries. However, there are few books and unable to get useful
information other than those that appear in travel guidebooks. Once I went
to the receptionist desk of the Temple's office. A middle-aged priest with
skin head and wearing black canonical dress was sitting over the counter,
which was shielded with glasses. I politely asked him if the Temple is
selling some books that tell the Temple's history or backgrounds. Opening
the glass shield, he said flatly that they had none, and tried to close
the shield. Holding him, I further asked if they have some information
brochures for casual visitors. Reluctantly, he pulled out one and handed
it to me saying, "Free of charge," and shut the shield. It was
no-nonsense. In front of his counter is the courtyard of the Temple, where
many visitors were having lunch speaking loudly. For those visitors the
Temple was just like one of many sightseeing spots. The priest must have
been looking at them all day long and may have been in an unpleasant mood.
But when I visited the Temple in November 2008, a young priest at the reception treated me differently. I wanted to visit Eshun-ni-do (sub-temple for Nun Eshun-ni), which is located off the pale of the Temple
and I haven't been there before. I asked him the way to the sub-temple.
He was very kind and showed me a shortcut across the pale giving me a guide
map.
Fuji Film's Flagship Factory Located near
the Temple
The company started as Japan Celluloid Inc. in the early 20th century.
With the advent of photograph technology, the company showed a keen interest
in the photo film in the 1920s and believed it would be promising with
a huge market potential. Back then, Eastman Kodak was the forerunner in
the industry, almost monopolizing the world market. Japan Celluloid thought
that entering into a licensee agreement with Eastman Kodak to produce photo
film in Japan under Eastman Kodak's licence would be the best to explore
the Japanese market. They started negotiation with Eastman Kodak, who declined
the offer after a careful survey. Japan Celluloid decided to have a photo
film factory with its own technology. They sought various candidate sites
for the factory. For photo film production, it was absolutely necessary
to secure clean and sufficient water under clean air. There were several
sites that were thought to be suitable for the factory, and they finally
picked up the site near the Temple. First of all, there were large springs
gushing clean water which has never ran dry. Summer or winter, the temperature
remained always unchanged. After testing water quality and other conditions,
the company concluded to construct the first film factory in Japan right
here. The factory construction was completed in 1934 and film production
started under the new name of Fuji Film Co. Ltd. In the beginning, Fuji
could in no way match Eastman Kodak in terms of product quality, and they
had to undergo hardships. Even in the 1970s, Eastman Kodak's film was far
better than Fuji's. But, Fuji slowly caught up to Kodak. In the early 1990s,
there was little difference quality wise between the two, and Fuji's annual
sales for@business year 2007 topping US$28 billion are well above Eastman
Kodak's US$10 billion. Fuji posted US$1,044 million net earnings the same
year as against Kodak's US$256 million net loss. On the other hand, Eastman
Kodak's profit performances were poor and was excluded from the Dow Jones
Industrial Average 30 in 2004.
Fuji grew with this flagship factory here and has long been maintaining
high stock prices as a blue chip company in the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The
buildings are quite different from those of Eastman Kodak's Rochester,
New York, and tells us appearance is often deceptive.
With development of digital technology, however, businesses for both companies
are changing rapidly. People take pictures but no longer use photographic
printing papers. Instead, they take pictures with digital cameras and store
them on hard discs. Fuji Film is the world's first digital camera maker
and now developed 3-D one. Fuji is developing new businesses in the area
of medical system, life science, optical devices, etc. , and is expected
to post 2,290 billion yen sales (US$30 billion at an exchange rate of 76
yen to the dollar), and 54 billion yen net earnings (US$711 million) for
the year ending March 31, 2012, while Eastman Kodak, the 131-year-old firm,
went bankrupt in January 2012 and filed for the Chapter 11, though unbelievable
to many photograph fans.
The founding priest Ryo-an-Emyo was born in Kanagawa Prefecture and took Buddhist vows in his youth. He once studied Buddhism at Engakuji in Kamakura and practiced Zazen, or sit-in meditation, at Sojiji in Ishikawa Prefecture. Later, he learned Zen Buddhism under the guidance of Priest Tsugen-Jakurei (1323-1391) at Yotakuji
in northern Hyogo Prefecture. At one time he took the chair of the chief
priest of Sojiji, but left Sojiji at age 57 and retuned to his hometown
Soga in Odawara, where he secluded himself at a hermitage called Jikudo-an.
(Jikudo is literally India). 
From the Ni-o-mon (Vajra-pani in Sanskrit) gate to the Temple entrance leads off a beautifully
maintained walkpath through the quiet woods for about two kilo meters.
I have been visiting the Temple at least once a year for over a dozen years
always walking this fantastic path. I meet only a handful of visitors going
up and down on foot even at weekends. However, the Temple is crowded in
the autumn foliage season. Most of them come here by bus, which connects
the Temple to Daiyuzan Station every 20 or 30 minutes. Almost parallel
to the walkpath is a driveway, on which buses are running with a full load
of passengers. Today's people do not really like to walk. 
Unique in the Temple is that more than one hundred pairs of clogs, large and small, are displayed in the grounds. A pair of clogs are old Japanese footwear made of wood and worn with kimono in less formal cases. Those clogs on display here are made of iron and dedicated by the devout to the Tengu, or Priest Doryo. Some of them are as high as two meters. Those pairs of clogs are believed to symbolize a conjugal harmony, and folklore belief has it that a pregnant woman would have an easy delivery if she pass under the high supports. 
Since there is no record on her daily behaviors, her false episode goes even further. At one point, Priest Ryoan sent the nun on an errand to 