Naritasan Shinshoji seemed, even in older descriptions, a place shaped for unhurried and reflective visits rather than for haste. For a traveler who prefers calm, Naritasan is said to suit an unhurried and attentive pace.
Where the temple stands
According to the guidebook, Naritasan Shinshoji, formally Jingo Shinshoji, stands in the town of Narita in Inba County, Chiba Prefecture, within the area historically designated as Shimousa Province.
The founding legend
According to local accounts, in 940 the priest Kancho of the Hirosawa school carried the Fudo Myoo image to Shimousa Province under imperial command and performed twenty-one days of fire rituals, on the last of which the rebel Taira no Masakado fell in battle. When Kancho later tried to carry the image back to Kyoto it is said to have grown immovably heavy, and a vision followed in which Fudo Myoo declared that he would remain in the east to aid the people. According to local accounts, the emperor then ordered a hall built on the site and bestowed the name Jingo Shinshoji. Temple tradition is said to hold that the principal image of Fudo Myoo, a wrathful Buddhist guardian deity, was carved by the monk Kukai, also known as Kobo Daishi, under imperial commission from Emperor Saga in the early ninth century, first enshrined at Jingoji on Mount Takao near Kyoto and later carried east.
The buildings
According to the guidebook, the Niomon, the temple's guardian gate, stands sixty-three feet tall on a plan of seven-and-a-half by ten-and-a-half ken (a traditional unit of bay width), was rebuilt in its present form in 1831, and holds fearsome guardian-king sculptures together with carved relief panels of classical Chinese subjects on the surrounding framework. According to the guidebook, the main hall, rebuilt in the 1850s by the head priest Shogaku, is a large keyaki (zelkova) timber structure with fourteen-ken sides, its exterior encircled by five hundred carved rakan figures (arhats, enlightened disciples of the Buddha) and its interior ceilings and panels carrying celebrated paintings by Edo-period artists including Kano Kazunobu. According to the same guidebook, a three-story pagoda more than ninety feet tall, ringed by carvings of the sixteen rakan, rises beside the main hall, and the present structure dates to 1803, replacing an earlier one raised in 1712.
The grounds
According to the guidebook, the enclosed precinct covered more than thirty thousand tsubo, roughly ten hectares, and was described as densely wooded with tall old pine and cedar through which the temple buildings appeared. According to the guidebook, the estate held a large pleasure garden with a plum grove of several hundred old trees, hillside cherry plantings of more than a hundred varieties, an iris pond, wisteria trellises, and wooded hilltop paths, with rest pavilions that offered panoramic views to visitors.
Ritual life and the approach
Guidebooks describe the temple's fire-offering ritual, or goma, as led by the head abbot at dawn and repeated through the day, so that incense and ritual smoke rose almost without pause from the main hall. Guidebooks describe the omotesando approach from the town toward the temple gate as flanked by multi-story shops, inns, and stalls selling local specialties such as chestnut bean jelly, oversized senbei rice crackers, and white sake, so that this commercial street forms an integral part of a Naritasan visit. Guidebooks describe spring and autumn, together with the first, fifth, and ninth months, as the temple's peak periods, when the guesthouse filled with pilgrims seeking overnight lodging.
Planning your visit
Guidebooks describe Naritasan as a place suited to an unhurried day for the traveler who values slow travel.
Compare options and book via our partner links.