Rokuharamitsuji -
Hell and Mad Saint

I am in Kyoto at the beginning of the second week of August, the hottest time of the year, the time also when the souls of the dead are being welcomed back to the earth.

For more then a week, from the 7th to the 15th, they may freely roam on our planet and will be entertained with food and delicacies by family members, before being sent off to the Netherworld again by the huge bonfires on the hills encircling the town. In Kyoto, I seek out an old neighborhood on the eastern bank of the Kamo River, called Rokudo, where the belief in the returning souls has left its strongest mark in local custom.

It is here, at a small temple called Chinkoji, that the entrance to the Underworld is located, and therefore many make a pilgrimage to the temple between August 7 and August 10 to call back the souls of their beloved dead. At that time stalls are set up, not only in the cramped temple grounds, but also in the neighboring streets, selling lanterns for the dead, incense, implements for the house altar, small earthenware dishes on which to place food for the returning souls, and many other things of which I can only guess the meaning.

Although I come here before noon, the streets are already full of browsers and buyers, and a long line of people winds into Chinkoji. They are waiting for their turn to ring Chinkoji's bell, which is believed to resound as far as the Other World. In the hall of Chinkoji, only open at this time of the year, sits Enma, the red-faced Judge of Hell, clad in the ornate robes of a Chinese magistrate, looking down upon the throngs as if enjoying the view of his future subjects.

Street Stalls for Rokudo Mairi

Hell
However, I have not come for Chinkoji, although the Rokudo-mairi is interesting enough to linger and view at leisure. I have come to visit Rokuharamitsuji, the temple of the Dancing Saint, Kuya. And it is no coincidence that this temple sits here, only a street away from Chinkoji, at the entrance to the underworld. Before there were temples here, before the downtown neighborhood covered this area and made it part of Kyoto, the east bank of the Kamo river already belonged to the dead. Called Toribe, it was a huge graveyard on the outskirts of the city. Here the poor came to bring their dead, and as there was no space for a grave, nor money to buy wood for cremation, the deceased were left lying in the open air, victim to the elements and the crows.

Kyoto, in the past already one of the largest cities in the world, had many dead to bury. One only has to think of the tenth century, an age of frequent earthquakes and epidemics. The western half of the city, originally laid out on too optimistic a scale, had fallen into ruins and from the swamps unhealthy vapors brought death and disease. It was an age of uncertainty and life was often short and bitter.

Kannon Statue in the Grounds of the Temple

Mad Saint
Then among the suffering and the poor of the city a hijiri, a wandering sage appeared. He used the alms he collected to buy food and medicine for the poor, and helped to dig wells and repair bridges; he preached about the Western Paradise of the Buddha Amida, open to all mankind who sincerely call on his name. His name was Kuya (903-972). He went around the town, clad in deerskin, with a bell around his neck, chanting the holy name of Amida while beating time on his wooden begging bowl. Kuya was also a pioneer of Pure Land Buddhism and sang simple songs like:

They who call
if only once
the Name of Amida
never fail to reach
the Land of Bliss

In 951, when another terrible epidemic struck Kyoto, he carved a statue of the Eleven-headed Kannon, put it on a cart and then pushed it through the city in a prayer for divine relief. Later, in 963, he built a temple to house the statue and it is no coincidence that he selected a site next to Toribe, the graveyard. After all, Kuya had been wont to say memorial services for abandoned corpses and have them decently cremated.

The temple quickly became a popular refuge. First called Saikoji,later the temple's name was changed to Rokuharamitsuji, or Temple of the Six Perfections. The original temple buildings were destroyed by fire, but the main hall, rebuilt in 1463, is one of Kyoto's oldest surviving buildings. The temple now sits in cramped grounds in what looks like an ordinary Kyoto neighborhood. Fortunately the houses that encircle it are still of the low family house type and no concrete apartment blocks. The main hall has glittering vermilion posts and beams and here too believers are swarming in and out. I do not want to disturb their services, and immediately wend my way to the ferro-concrete building next to it.

The Vermilion Temple Hall

Amida on his Tongue
I have come to meet Kuya, who is still standing here invocating the Buddha's name. The statue is life-size, and Kuya is thin, ascetic and glares at me from behind glassy eyes. His mouth is open and he seems to unfurl a long tongue from it. But it is no tongue, it is a metal strip with six small Amida images placed on it, as a symbol of his continuous recitation of 'Namu Amida Buddha,' Save Me, Amida. It looks weird and somehow very modern at the same time.

After Kuya's death in 972, the temple he left behind prospered, and the district gradually lost its gruesomeness. It even became fashionable when the Taira clan, that had come to dominate government, established its mansions here in the middle of the twelfth century. Unfortunately, when the Taira were destroyed by the Genji or Minamoto clan in 1183, after one of the most epic struggles of Japanese history, the whole district - including the temple - was put to the torch by the enemy. It was later rebuilt, but Rokuharamitsuji never grew very large again and remained a neighborhood temple.

All the more surprising is therefore the richness of its Buddhist statues: a magnificent Jizo, sculpted by the famous Unkei; a statue of Unkei himself, and one of his son Tankei; and a statue representing Kiyomori (1118-1181), the masterful leader of the Taira clan, in monk's garb. The anonymous sculptor has deftly brought out the shrewdness, even ruthlessness, of this master politician, who intrigued his way to the most exalted position in Japan. Kiyomori sits reading a scroll, perhaps a Buddhist sutra and he too has those weird inlaid eyes of glass. This was a custom that started in the Kamakura period, in order to make statues as true to life as possible.

Standing in the small storehouse, I suddenly feel suffocated. Is it the heat of the August day? Or is it the horror exuded by the cruel face of Kiyomori, mixed with the mad chanting of St. Kuya? I know I have to leave. Today the Gates of Hell are open, and all the dread and horror it harbors flows out here to Rokudo, to the Temple of Six Perfections.