Shibamata Taishakuten

Overview

Shibamata Taishakuten (柴又帝釈天) is a Buddhist temple in the Shibamata neighbourhood of Katsushika ward, in the east of Tokyo. Its formal name is Daikyō-ji (題経寺), and it belongs to the Nichiren-shū (日蓮宗), the school of Buddhism founded by the thirteenth-century monk Nichiren. The temple was founded in 1629, during the Edo period, and its principal image is Taishakuten, a deity of Indian origin who entered the Buddhist pantheon as a protector of the dharma.

The temple is one of the best-known sites in the eastern part of the city, and it anchors a shopping street and a small network of pilgrimage sites. It is also a member of the Shibamata Shichifukujin (柴又七福神), a local grouping of seven temples and shrines dedicated to the Seven Lucky Gods.

History

The temple was founded in 1629, the sixth year of the Kan'ei era (寛永), a period that falls within the Edo period. That places its establishment in the early decades of the Tokugawa shogunate, when Edo — the city that would become Tokyo — was still expanding rapidly and new religious foundations were appearing across the Kantō plain.

The temple's formal name, Daikyō-ji, is the name used in official and sectarian contexts. The name by which it is almost universally known, Shibamata Taishakuten, combines the neighbourhood name with the name of the central object of worship. Over the centuries the temple became the focal point of Shibamata's religious life and, later, of its identity as a destination for day-trippers from central Tokyo.

In 1996 the Ministry of the Environment designated the temple and its ferryboat as one of the 100 Soundscapes of Japan (日本の音風景100選), a list recognising places where sound — here, among other things, the sounds of the temple grounds and the crossing — forms part of the character of a site. In 2009 the temple and its ferryboat were selected as one of the 100 Landscapes of Japan (平成の百景), a Heisei-era list of places of scenic and cultural value.

What Stands There Today

The temple sits in Shibamata, a district on the eastern edge of Tokyo near the Edogawa river, and the approach to it runs along a preserved shopping street that leads from Shibamata Station toward the temple gate. The grounds include the main hall, where Taishakuten is enshrined, and a garden and carved-panel gallery that visitors can walk through.

The temple's ferryboat, known as the Yagiri no Watashi, is a river crossing associated with the site and is named in both the 1996 soundscape designation and the 2009 landscape designation. The boat carries passengers across the Edogawa, continuing a crossing that has long been part of the route to and from Shibamata.

The temple is one of the seven sites of the Shibamata Shichifukujin, a local pilgrimage circuit. Visitors who complete the circuit move between the temples and shrines of the group, of which Shibamata Taishakuten is a member.

The Name in Japanese

The Japanese name is 柴又帝釈天, read in kana as しばまたたいしゃくてん, and romanised as Shibamata Taishakuten.

The name breaks into two parts: a place name and a deity's name.

柴 (しば, shiba) — a shrub or brushwood; the character refers to firewood or small woody plants. In this name it is the first element of the place name Shibamata.

又 (また, mata) — "again," or "also." Here it is the second element of the place name, not used in its ordinary adverbial sense.

Together, 柴又 (しばまた, Shibamata) is the name of the neighbourhood in Katsushika where the temple stands. The two characters function as a single place name, and the reading しばまた is the one used for this district.

帝 (たい, tai) — "emperor" or "sovereign." In this compound it is the first element of the deity's name as written in Japanese.

釈 (しゃく, shaku) — from the Sanskrit Śakra; the character is also used in the Japanese name for the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni (釈迦牟尼). Here it renders the second element of the deity's name.

天 (てん, ten) — "heaven," or "deity." In Buddhist usage it commonly marks a heavenly being or god, and it closes the name of the deity.

So 帝釈天 (たいしゃくてん, Taishakuten) is the Japanese name for the deity also known in Sanskrit as Śakra, the lord of the Trāyastriṃśa heaven and a guardian figure in Buddhist cosmology. The full name 柴又帝釈天 therefore means, plainly, "the Taishakuten of Shibamata" — the neighbourhood name attached to the deity worshipped there.

The temple's formal name, 題経寺 (だいきょうじ, Daikyō-ji), is a separate construction: 題 (だい, dai), "title" or "subject"; 経 (きょう, kyō), "sutra"; and 寺 (じ, ji), "temple." The suffix 寺 is the standard element in Japanese temple names.

Visiting and Context

Shibamata Taishakuten is reached from Shibamata Station on the Keisei Kanamachi Line, at the end of a shopping street that leads to the temple gate. The coordinates of the temple are 35.7584° N, 139.8782° E, in the far east of Tokyo, close to the Edogawa river and the boundary with Chiba Prefecture.

The temple is a working Nichiren-shū foundation, not a museum, and its grounds are open to visitors. Its combination of a temple, a preserved approach street, a garden, and a river ferry makes it one of the more complete surviving examples of an Edo-period religious and commercial landscape in the Tokyo area. For learners of Japanese, the name itself is a compact lesson: a place name, a deity's name in Sino-Japanese reading, and the standard temple suffix, all in five characters.