Ryukoji Temple, one of the historically significant temples of the Nichiren Sect of Japanese Buddhism
If you travel to Katase-Enoshima station, near the beaches in southern Fujisawa, you might see the top of a pagoda peaking above the trees on a nearby hillside. Ryukoji is not a large temple, especially compared to the sprawling complexes and monasteries in nearby Kamakura, but for the Nichiren school of Buddhism, this hillside temple is just as historically important as anything in Kamakura.
the main hall of Ryukoji, a temple in Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan. The current main hall was built in 1832 and is the oldest building I could find a date for at the temple.
Nichiren was a Japanese Buddhist monk and priest who lived in the mid 13th century. He was rather controversial in his day as he pushed a strict adherence to only certain texts in certain ways, or else the heavens will turn against you. Pretty much, he was the Buddhist equivalent to a fundamentalist baptist. I am not going to go into detail about the specifics Nichiren’s religious beliefs, as that lies outside the scope of what we try to do on this blog, but suffice to say that his strict beliefs and his insistence that the Kamakura Shogunate follow them did not make him very popular with people in power. In 1254, Nichiren arrived in Kamakura following a string of hardships for the city, having endured earthquakes, fires, famines, and other calamities in recent years. Seeing the poor state of the city, he immediately started work on a series of writings blaming all of Kamakura’s problems on the fact that the country wasn’t following the right kind of Buddhism or reading the right kind of religious texts. If the Shogun and his Hojo advisers didn’t change their ways, calamities would only continue. In 1260, he delivered a masterfully written treatise in the classical Chinese style to the government with high hopes that he would convince the shogunate of the error of their ways. Importantly, one of the additional hardships that Nichren predicted was the threat of foreign invasion.
The gate and stairs leading into Ryokoji
The Kamakura Shogunate ignored him. The other priests and monks in Kamakura, however, did pay attention and they were not at all pleased by this upstart encroaching on their power base. Soon, Nichiren was on the run, fleeing from assassination attempts while the priests in Kamakura arranged to have him banished from the capital. This left the wayward priest stuck in Izu for two years while he studied, wrote, and tried to convince the shogunate to let him return from exile. Eventually, he was allowed to return to Kamakura where he spent his time teaching, writing, and dodging assassination attempts. This continued until 1268, when the Mongols showed up, threatening invasion if the Japanese didn’t submit to the rule of Kublai Kahn. Nichiren, of course, wasted no time pointing to his earlier prediction of foreign invasion and saying “I told you so” to everyone in the government. This time he did get response from the Shogunate. He was eventually arrested and brought before the Hojo Clan retainers who ordered him exiled to Sado Island off the coast of modern Niigata. An overzealous group of samurai however, decided it was better to get rid of him permanently. They hauled him to hillside near the coast in modern day Fujisawa with the intention of executing him. Suddenly, according to some accounts, a bright orb – as bright as the moon- streaked across the sky at the very moment he was supposed to be beheaded, frightening the executioners and saving Nichiren’s life. It was decided that he would be exiled after all. Nichiren would eventually die in 1282, surprisingly of natural causes, on Mount Minobu in Yamanashi Prefecture. Today Nichiren Buddhism is one of Japan’s major forms of Buddhist teaching and has been exported throughout much of the rest of the world.
The 5 story pagoda of Ryukoji. Completed in 1910 it is one of few Meiji Period pagodas in Japan.
In 1337, one of Nichiren’s followers founded the temple of Ryokuji on the site of the grounds were the failed execution occurred to commemorate the event and today it is considered one of the main temples for Nichiren Buddhism. The temple itself is fairly small and contains no original structures that I could find. Still, it has an interesting story, and if you are in the area anyway, either to hit the nearby beaches or to explore the island of Enoshima (which deserves its own article), it might be worth a visit.
The stupa of Ryukoji. This hilltop stupa was built in 1970 and originally had a commanding view of Enoshima and the surrounding seaside. Sadly several high-rise apartment buildings currently block much of that view today.