Atago Shrine (Kanzanji Onsen on Lake Hamana)

Steps leading up to Atago Shrine, lined with haiku plaques on either side

Kanzanji Onsen in Shizuoka Prefecture is a small and commercialised hot spring resort, but rather delightful out of season when there are no crowds to spoil the peace.  It’s on Hamanako, which used to be a fresh-water lake until an earthquake opened it up to the Pacific.  Now it’s famous for cultivated eel and oyster.

The hot spring resort takes its name from an ancient temple, founded in 810 by Kukai according to tradition.  Next to it stands Atago Shrine, from which a short pilgrimage trail leads round the small peninsula behind.  The trail is associated with Saigyo, who supposedly came here and meditated on a rock.  It’s rather curious that the two trailblazing figures of early Heian times should have both come to this lakeside setting, one the founder of the Shingon sect and the other the founder of Tendai.  Perhaps they were attracted by the hot springs.

The shrine is covered with the stickers of pilgrims who come to visit the site.  ‘Pray to the kami and buddhas,’ said one of them, and the syncretic atmosphere remains strongly evident.  Buddhist statues of Kannon and Jizo are placed at points around the trail, festooned with Shinto shimenawa.  Even now the temple-shrine complex looks all of a piece, despite the best efforts of the Meiji ideologues to separate the two.

Saigyo's rock

Shrine guardian with piercing eyes

Lining the steps up to the shrine are plaques celebrating the winners of the shrine’s annual Moon Viewing Haiku Contest.  (Interestingly the full moon is a symbol of Buddhist enlightenment, while Shinto is associated with the sun.)  Here on the headland, sat in the radiance of the moonlight, participants heighten their sense of wonder at the world.  This, to me, is the essence of what Shinto is all about – appreciation of the magic of life.

In Uchi Inlet
Gentle lapping of water:
Rainy moon

Evening moon –
By Saigyo’s rock
A person at prayer

Harvest moon –
Ink painting of Kanzanji
Covering the lake

Setting sun in the Bentenjima torii of Lake Hamana