If you have been checking out my posts of my December trip to Tokyo, I apologize for not posting sooner. This time it was because I needed to find out just what this little shrine area in Shiba-koen was.
Hoju-in is right across the street from Tokyo Tower. Although it's rather hard to find English information on-line about it. However that's one of the things I like about Japan, stumbling on interesting little places and then finding out just what they are.
The nice thing about Minato in Tokyo is they have websites with good information also in English. It's where I found out about the Seven Lucky Gods of Fortune (Shichi-fukujin) and their temples which are found through out Minato.
Hoju-in Temple is for Benzai-ten, the Lucky Goddess of the arts and monitory fortune.
This may be the hall there that houses a statue of Emma-Daio, judge of the dead. (I can't help but think of Hell Girl once I found this out).
There are a few small shrines there.
Snakes are associated with the goddess Benzaiten. It is said she can assume the shape of a snake or dragon, or that a snake is her messenger. So it's good to see this snake is well tended to with a fresh cup of sake.
As is this Jizo Bosatsu, protector of children.
I did find out an interesting story about the frog. He might represent Gama-ike. It seems there once was a large fire in the area and a large frog leaped out of a pond and extinguished the flames with his breath. The actual pond is in Moto-Azuba and is fed by a natural spring. It was almost destroyed recently by construction but they built around it. Gama-ike is a protector for burns.
Just past the shrines is a pond, Benten-ike.
Benzai-ten was originally a river goddess which is why there is a water feature here. It was quite lovely to see.
Walking along the turning leaves of Autumn. Which I will share next post exploring Shiba-koen park. Thank you for looking at my entry here.
Updating this post because I discovered that Google Maps put a name with this temple. Hoshuin. Not sure if that is correct so I will keep the original spelling for the post and just add Hoshuin to my tags.