Toyokawa Inari: A Sōtō Zen Temple and Center of Dakini Worship in Japan
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Japan
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- Japanese
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Monastery
On this page15 sections
History
Toyokawa Inari is a Sōtō Zen Buddhist temple in Toyokawa, Japan, founded in 1441 by Tōkai Gieki during the Muromachi period. Formally called Myōgon-ji, it is also known by the mountain name Enpuku-zan. The temple became a major center of Buddhist Dakini worship and is popularly associated with Inari, although it remains a Buddhist temple rather than a Shinto shrine.
Foundation and religious tradition
Tōkai Gieki entered religious life at the age of nine under Kazo Gidō, the fifth patriarch of the Hōō branch of the Sōtō school. Sōtō is a major Japanese Zen tradition that emphasizes seated meditation and teachings derived from the Chinese Caodong tradition. Gieki later trained at Fusaiji in Hamamatsu and rebuilt the dilapidated Shingon temple Kanki-in in Toyohashi in 1439, converting it to Sōtō Buddhism. Two years later, he founded Myōgon-ji on the highland called Enpuku-ga-oka near the Toyokawa River. The temple had moved to its present site by the Genroku era.
Myōgon-ji links its Dakini worship to Kangan Giin, a medieval Zen monk regarded there as the ancestral patriarch of the Hōō branch. Tradition holds that Dakini appeared to Giin during his return voyage from Song China in 1267 and protected him. He consequently venerated the deity as a Buddhist protector and made an image of her. That image was later believed to have come into Gieki’s possession and to have been enshrined at Myōgon-ji.
The temple’s principal image is the Eleven-faced Thousand-armed Kannon, a form of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara associated with compassion and the ability to respond to those in need. Its guardian deity is Toyokawa Dakini Shinten. In Japan, Dakini worship became closely combined with Inari beliefs, and at Myōgon-ji the deity took on associations with rice, prosperity, and foxes. This combination gave rise to the popular name Toyokawa Inari.
Military patronage and Edo-period devotion
In 1536, Imagawa Yoshimoto donated the Sanmon, or mountain gate, to the temple. During the late Muromachi period he also contributed to the improvement of the compound. In the Sengoku period, an era of intense political and military conflict before the Tokugawa shogunate, Myōgon-ji received protection from Yoshimoto and Tokugawa Ieyasu. Military figures including Kuki Yoshitaka also showed devotion to the temple. Tradition associates Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi with it, although certain records do not support those connections.
During the Edo period, the era of Tokugawa rule from the early seventeenth to the nineteenth century, Toyokawa Inari attracted townspeople and merchants. Dakini was regarded as a protector associated with advancement in life and protection against theft. Among the temple’s notable devotees were Ōoka Tadasuke, an Edo-period magistrate and daimyō in the Tokugawa administration, and Watanabe Kazan, a painter and scholar.
In 1828, an Edo worship center was established in part of Ōoka’s residence in Akasaka, Tokyo. It later became the temple’s directly administered Tokyo branch. Other branch institutions were established in Osaka, Yokosuka, Sapporo, and Fukuoka. Myōgon-ji also operates Toyokawa High School, and the school’s former site was later converted into a car park.
Meiji reorganization and modern religious life
In the early Meiji period, Prince Arisugawa Taruhito donated a framed plaque bearing the words “Toyokawa Temple.” The gift contributed to the alternative name Toyokawa-kaku. In 1871, the government’s policy of separating Buddhism and Shinto led to a strict inquiry into the relationship between Buddhist and Shinto elements at Myōgon-ji. The following year, the temple was permitted to retain its Inari hall as a guardian hall, but the torii along the approach were removed. The names “Toyokawa Inari” and “Toyokawa Daimyōjin” fell out of use officially, while “Toyokawa Dakini Shinten” was adopted. “Toyokawa Inari” soon returned as the popular name.
After Aizen-ji was abolished, Toyokawa Inari became a major center for transmitting Dakini worship to Buddhist temples. Edo shogunate documents formally identified the estate as the temple territory of Myōgon-ji in Toyokawa Village rather than using Toyokawa Inari as an official name. A Meiji-era investigation stated that the names Toyokawa Daimyōjin and Toyokawa Inari had been used for roughly sixty or seventy years, apparently in connection with the local place-name.
The temple is regarded as one of Japan’s Three Great Inari centers, although the membership of that grouping varies. Toyokawa Inari identifies the other two as Fushimi Inari Taisha and Yutoku Inari Shrine. It is also the concluding temple of the Tōkai Hundred Kannon pilgrimage and is associated with the Tōkai Thirty-six Fudō pilgrimage and the Mikawa New Shikoku Eighty-eight Sacred Sites. Its observances include the founder’s memorial rites on March 28 and 29, the Buddha’s Birthday ceremony on April 8, spring and autumn grand festivals, the monthly festival on the 22nd, Bon memorial rites mainly for victims of the Toyokawa air raid, and a five-day Buddhist relic service beginning on December 8.
Most surviving buildings were rebuilt between the late Edo period and the modern period. The temple maintained a Sōtō specialist training monastery until it was discontinued in 2021. In 1954, it held a forty-day public opening of the normally hidden Toyokawa Dakini Shinten image. The temple continues to receive approximately five million visitors annually, particularly people praying for business prosperity.
Remains
Gates and principal halls
Sōmon and Sanmon
The Sōmon, or Main Gate, is a four-legged gate with an irimoya roof, a layered roof form, and a karahafu gable. Built in 1884, it has doors made from single zelkova boards about 15 centimeters thick. Wood left over from making the doors is preserved in the study building. The Sanmon is a two-story gate with an irimoya roof. Donated by Imagawa Yoshimoto in 1536, it is the oldest surviving building in the complex.
Dharma Hall and Zuishōden
The Dharma Hall, also called the Main Hall, housed the temple’s Eleven-faced Thousand-armed Kannon. Originally rebuilt during the Tempo era, approximately 1830–1843, it deteriorated and was demolished in 2016. A new Dharma Hall was completed on the former site of Hōunden in 2024. The earlier Kannon statue is preserved inside a newer image installed when the replacement hall was completed.
The Zuishōden is a two-story steel-framed building for receiving worshippers. Built in 2016 on the former Dharma Hall site, it stands directly ahead after entry through the Sanmon. Its first floor contains a rest room, while the second floor has a training hall and a reception hall measuring 252 tatami mats. The Saishōden, also called the Study Hall, was completed in 1929 and contains a hall measuring 400 tatami mats. A corridor about one hundred ken long, known as the Tsūten Corridor, connects the Zuishōden and Honden.
Honden
The Honden is the principal hall for worship of Toyokawa Dakini Shinten. It stands at the rear left of the compound beyond a torii, a gate traditionally associated with Shinto sacred space whose presence here reflects the historical combination of Buddhist and native Japanese practices. The large hall has an irimoya roof and a gable-end entrance. Local carpenters from Ushikubo, working through the firm Igetaya, began construction in 1908, and the building was completed in 1930 after more than twenty years of work. A lightning rod on its ridge tiles was removed in 2022 after a nearby high-rise apartment building was constructed.
Religious images and carved decoration
Toyokawa Dakini Shinten and Kannon
Toyokawa Dakini Shinten is represented as a celestial woman flying above rocks and mist while riding a white fox. She carries rice sheaves on a shoulder pole and holds a wish-granting jewel. The image is enshrined as the guardian deity of the compound. The Treasure Hall displays a reconstructed version of the formerly polychrome shrine that housed it; soot has obscured the colors of the original shrine.
The Treasure Hall also preserves temple cultural properties, including a particularly large collection of paintings associated with the Kanō school. The temple’s Eleven-faced Thousand-armed Kannon is the principal image. When the new Dharma Hall was completed, a new image was placed over the earlier statue, which remains preserved within it.
Tachikawa-school carvings
Toyokawa Inari is noted for elaborate architectural woodcarving by the Suwa Tachikawa school, especially work by the second Tachikawa Wasaburō, Tomimasa, and his disciple Miyasaka Tsunezō. Examples appear in the Sōmon, the shrine within the Guardian Hall, Keiun Gate, the Inner Sanctuary, and the transom panels from the former Dharma Hall. Those panels were fitted into the present Dharma Hall.
Fox statues, memorials, and associated features
Reiko-zuka and Heihachirō
The Reiko-zuka contains more than 1,000 stone fox statues. The approach also holds approximately 1,000 prayer banners inscribed with worshippers’ wishes. A local tradition identifies Heihachirō, or Heihachirō Inari, with a fox spirit associated with the founder. In the story, an old man served Gieki as a temple worker and cooked with a pot said to provide food for very large numbers of people. He disappeared after Gieki’s death, leaving the pot behind. It is preserved at the rear of the Honden.
Other surviving features
The grounds include a memorial monument for people killed in the bombing of the naval arsenal, as well as Inari Park and the Myōgon-ji garden. Two wooden standing Jizō Bosatsu statues, each 77 centimeters high and attributed to the Kamakura period, are made of painted cypress assembled through joined-block construction. Together they are designated National Important Cultural Properties. Other associated features include the torii on the approach to the Honden, a portable shrine weighing about 600 kilograms for the grand festivals, large festival lanterns, and a 50-kilogram Japanese candle lit during the autumn festival.
