Tokyo 2019: Zojoji Temple

One morning while I was in Tokyo I stopped by Zojoji Temple before beginning a day trip down to Kamakura (which I’ll cover in a separate post in the future). Zojoji is close to Tokyo Tower and I like to think of the temple as a less crowded alternative to Sensoji Temple in Asakusa. Zojoji was first built in 1393 and got moved to its current location in 1598 where it was made the official family temple of the ruling Tokugawa family. The main hall is open to the public and if you visit at the right time you might get to watch the local monks performing in a Buddhist ceremony.

Around the side of Zojoji are rows of small statues that are meant to honor miscarried and stillborn children. While I’ve seen similar statues at other temples, normally you’ll only see a few of them at other places while Zojoji has at least 200 of them.

In the back of the temple you can also find a number of smaller shrines and the tombs of six Tokugawa shoguns. I didn’t spend a lot of time at Zojoji because I needed to get to Kamakura but it’s a temple that I like to visit whenever I’m in Tokyo.