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Eishō-ji

Bettoji TemplesBuddhist temples in Kamakura, Kanagawa
Eishoji20121008
Eishoji20121008

Eisho-ji (英勝寺) is a Jōdo-shū temple in Ogigayatsu, Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan, and is the sole nunnery in Kamakura. The mountain name is Tokozan. Okaji no Kata, a concubine of Tokugawa Ieyasu, took the name Eishoin after her pabbajja and founded the temple. The temple is thought to be located at the site of the residence of Ōta Dōkan, who was ancestor of the found. Okaji no Kata bore Ieyasu a daughter, Ichihime, but she died very young. After Ichihime's death, Ieyasu ordered Okaji no Kata to become the adoptive mother of Tokugawa Yorifusa, who later reigned over Mito Domain. The founding priestess Gyokuhōseiinni was a daughter of Yorifusa. From its foundation, princesses of Mito Domain regularly became priestesses of Eisho-ji. Thus people called the temple "Mito palace" or "Nunnery of Mito". After the Meiji Restoration, the practice of obtaining priestesses from the Mito Domain was discontinued and influence of the temple waned. During the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, the temple gate was damaged but volunteers eventually rebuilt it on the original cornerstone, with the completion ceremony being held on May 16, 2011. The temple is the 6th temple of Togoku Hananotera 100 kaji located in Kamakura.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Eishō-ji (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 35.325138888889 ° E 139.54986111111 °
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Address

英勝寺

Imakoji 鎌倉市扇ガ谷1-6-13
248-0012 Kamakura
Japan
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Phone number

call0467223534

linkWikiData (Q11616891)
linkOpenStreetMap (279691103)

Eishoji20121008
Eishoji20121008
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Kamakura's Seven Entrances
Kamakura's Seven Entrances

The city of Kamakura, Kanagawa in Japan, is closed off on three sides by very steep hills and on the fourth by the sea: before the construction of several modern tunnels and roads, the so-called Seven Entrances (Nana-guchi), or Seven Passes (七切り通し, Nana-kiridoshi) (all artificial) were its main links to the rest of the world. The city was therefore a natural fortress and, according to the Azuma Kagami, it was chosen by Minamoto no Yoritomo as his base specifically for this reason. The name itself seems to have been modeled on that of Kyoto's Seven Entrances (京都七口)—sometimes translated as the seven "mouths"—which first appears in the literature of the intermediate Muromachi period (around the year 1450). Together with the other "numbered" names like "Kamakura's Ten Wells" and "Kamakura's Ten Bridges", the modern "Seven Entrances" is an Edo period invention probably concocted to stimulate tourism. The Azuma Kagami calls them simply -zaka: Kobukurozaka, Daibutsuzaka, Gokurakuzaka, etc. Besides these seven, there were always other mountain roads that connected Kamakura with, for example, Kotsubo and Shichirigahama. There is one, for example, that connects Kaizō-ji in Ōgigayatsu with Kita-Kamakura Station. The Seven Entrances were simply the most convenient and important. While economically vital because they allowed traffic to and from the outside world, the Seven Passes had also great military value, and as such they were fortified in various ways, for example narrowing them further until a horse could barely pass through, and obstructing the view of incomers. The roads were also modified adding artificial cliffs and forts from which archers could hit enemies below.