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| Zōjō-ji after midnight on New Year's 2011. |
The New Year's holiday in Japan has a lot to offer and we tried to experience as much of it as we could this year. It's too much to cover in one post, so I will be breaking it up into two posts. The first post will cover New Year's Eve. The post following this will be New Year's Day. In my introduction, I explained some of the background and different traditional happenings during the New Year's holiday in Japan. I will be adding and expanding on these with the traditional and cultural events I was able to take part in this year. On New Year's Eve, we decided to go to the popular and famous New Year's Countdown held at Zōjō-ji.
Zōjō-ji is a Buddhist temple located in the Minato Ward of Tokyo. Today, it's probably most well known for being the temple next to Tokyo Tower, which is the Eiffel Tower look-a-like in the picture above, but Zōjō-ji has had an important history which I will get into a little detail about before continuing with the New Year's festivities.
Zōjō-ji was founded in 1393 as the orthodox nembutsu seminary for Jodo shu. [1] Without diving too deep into Japanese Buddhism, which would need its own set of posts by itself, Jodo shu is more commonly known as Pure Land Buddhism, where anyone is able to achieve salvation and be reborn in the Pure Land. Jodo shu is a Chinese development of Buddhism based of Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) Buddhism that originated in India. One of the main tenets of Jodo shu is Senju Nembutsu, or the recitation of the nembutsu prayer "Namu Amida Butsu" that one can achieve salvation. [2]
The biggest change for Zōjō-ji came in 1598 when the temple was relocated to its present location by Iyeasu Tokugawa. Iyeasu Tokugawa is known as the unifier of Japan and began the Tokugawa Shogunate, which would rule Japan from 1603-1868. Zōjō-ji became the personal family temple of the Tokugawas. Six of the fifteen Tokugawa Shoguns are buried here, including Hidetada Tokugawa, who was Iyeasu's son. At its height in importance and size during this period; the following period of the Meiji Period marked a decline like other Buddhist temples at the time when Buddhism was dismissed in favor of Shinto. (I have discussed this anti-Buddhism further in the 3rd paragraph of my previous entry on Enoshima, where the same thing happened to Buddhist temples there.) Most of the temple complex was burned down during the air raids of World War II, but have since been rebuilt and it still remains the main temple of the Jodo shu sect. Here is what the temple complex looks like today.
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| Sangedatsumon, the huge main gate to the temple complex. |
Sangedatsumon (三解脱門, さんげだつもん) is the only surviving building from World War II. The gate was built in 1622 and stands at 21 meters in height, 28.7 meters in width and 17.6 meters in depth. Sangedatsumon means three (san), liberated from earthly desires (gedatsu) and gate (mon). Passing through this gate is supposed to relieve one from the three earthly passions of: greed, anger and stupidity which block enlightenment and continues the cycle of birth, death and rebirth in Buddhism. [3]
Right after the gate is this tree:
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| Daibonshō |
Continuing through the temple and up the main steps is the main building.
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| Daiden (Main Hall) with Tokyo Tower hiding behind it. |
The Daiden (大殿, だいでん) is the main hall of the temple, with Tokyo Tower behind it making it one of the famous temple sights in Tokyo. It's the building in the 1st picture of this entry. Inside are the main images of: Amida Buddha, made in the Muromachi Period (1336-1573), the image of Shan-tao on the right, who perfected China's Pure Land Buddhism and the image of Honen Shonin on the left, who founded Japan's Jodo Shu. [6]
The other building that was part of my New Year's experience at Zōjō-ji was Ankokuden.
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| Ankokuden with an illuminated Tokyo Tower in the background. |
Ankokuden holds the Black Image of Amida Buddha. This Buddha was worshipped by Iyeasu Tokugawa and is said to have saved him many times and bring him victory in battle. It is now known as a miracle working Buddha that gives victory and defends against evil. [7]
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| Sorry about the size, but like most shrines and temples, it's impossible to get too close. In the middle is the Black Image of Amida Buddha. |
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| The complete family tree of the Tokugawas beginning at Iyeasu. The 15 shoguns from this family line are marked in green. |
The temple has more buildings and interesting parts then what I've showed, but I'll try and get back to topic at hand with New Year's. If people are interested in learning more about Zōjō-ji post a comment below and I'll get back to Zōjō-ji and write another post about it in the future.
Before heading to Zōjō-ji for the countdown we had the traditional New Year's meal at home.
The traditional meal to eat at New Years is toshikoshi soba (年越しそば, としこしそば). The long noodles represent longevity, which is granted to the person eating them. We had tempura (天ぷら, てんぷら) with ours, which is Japanese deep frying, in this case shrimp.
One of the major draws to the countdown at Zōjō-ji is the temple hands out wish cards and balloons that get released at midnight, granting the wish to the person. However being one of the people who get to participate is a 2 step long process on New Years Eve, so we had to head to the temple early. The first step is to get the wish card, which is done at 8:30 P.M. The temple only has about 3,000 balloons to hand out so they only hand out wish cards to the first 3,000 people or so. We got there a bit early, but still barely made the cut. After a minute or two in line they stopped allowing people to enter. Then at 10:30 you bring the wish card with you to get your balloon at the temple. The people that are living close to the area might go home during that time, but Zōjō-ji is pretty far from our place so it wasn't an option.
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| Sangedatsumon decorated for the New Year's countdown and holiday. |
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| The front of the admission ticket to get the wish card. |
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| The back of the admission ticket in English. |
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| The front of the wish card. Japan also follows the Zodiac Animals. 2011 is the year of the rabbit. |
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| The back of the wish card. |
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| The main hall, Daiden decorated for New Year's with a lit up Tokyo Tower in the background. |
The temple had countdown clocks in a variety of spots.
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| In front of Sangedatsumon. |
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| In front of the main hall, Daiden. |
Besides the countdown, the temple has many important New Year's rituals to conduct at this time. Visiting the temple during the New Year's holiday is a special time as many rituals are publicly performed and temples are often much more open at this time than throughout the year. It's a good chance to see some of the more famous religious items (also the oldest and highest craftsmanship) that the temple might have more concealed throughout the year At Zōjō-ji, the main hall was open for people and the main image was displayed more in the open than it usually is.
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| The temple's main image along with New Year's decorations that stand out amongst the usual items on the altar. |
The rest of Zōjō-ji was also decorated for the New Year's holiday.
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| Ankokuden during New Year's. |
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| Daibonshō with New Year's decorations. |
We were able to watch one of the rituals performed at the temple before midnight. The ritual involves the burning of the old charms, protections and other religious items from the year. At the end of the year, temples and shrines collect the religious items people had bought from that year and burn them, while people get new ones for the coming year.
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| The monks presiding over the ceremony before burning the objects. |
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| The burning of the religious objects. |
At this point, it was time to get our balloons. We took our wish cards over to redeem our balloons and prepare for New Year's.
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| They smartly gave out the balloons enclosed in a room, so none would escape by accident as people attached their wish cards to the balloons. |
After getting our balloons the only thing left to do was to find a good spot near the bell and wait for New Year's to come.
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| Along with everything else in Tokyo, tons of other people. |
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| The temple monks preparing for the Joya no kane ceremony. |
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| Our New Year's balloons with wish cards attached ready to be released (don't worry, they were completely biodegradable) and our wishes granted. |
The final countdown for the New Year is basically the same as it is back in the United States (well except for the Japanese).
After the countdown, the temple held the Joya no kane ceremony. The Joya no kane ceremony is the 108 bell rings on New Year's Eve night. At Buddhist temples across Japan on New Year's, the temple's bell is rung 108 times at New Year's. The number 108 is for the 108 possible sins man can do as believed in Buddhism. The bell is rung 108 times to absolve all of the sins a person committed in the previous year. The people in the town, or those that come to the ceremony sign up to be able to be one of the groups that is allowed to ring the bell during this time. This is the main function of Buddhist temples in Japan for New Year's, while shrines are usually the focus of hatsumōde (初詣, はつもうで) or first visit to shrine or temple of the year.
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| Families going to ring the bell during Joya no kane. |
Even after Joya no kane, the New Year's Eve celebrations are not over yet. Everyone who was there for the countdown now rushes to the main hall for Zōjō-ji's Hatsumōde, where the crowds are so large police need to direct the crowds and many times I felt squished or ready to be pushed off the steps that led up to the main hall.
At this point people buy fortunes, charms and protections for the New Year from the temple. While we didn't buy any of that, my girlfriend and I decided to start a new collection throughout the year. Shrines and temples have goshuin (御朱印, ごしゅいん) for sale. Goshuin are special red stamps and signatures that the shrine or temple sign for visitors. The shrine and temples also sell a notebook that can be used to collect these goshuin. These goshuin confer protection on the person from the shrine or temple. I'm not as interested in that, as I am interested in their value artistically, with the Japanese calligraphy. We saw it on a trip to Todai-ji for the first time last year and I finally decided I wanted to start collecting them from the temples and shrines that I go to starting in the new year. I bought the notebook and my first goshuin in the New Year at Zōjō-ji.
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| The cover of the Goshuin notebook (each shrine or temple has different covers, collectible in its own right). |
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| Zōjō-ji's New Year's Goshuin |
After getting the Goshuin, we head back home to get a little sleep before preparing for another busy day celebrating New Year festivities tomorrow.
明けましておめでとうございます
あけましておめでとうございます
Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu
Happy New Year's
References:
1. "Main Temple of Jodo shu (Pure Land Sect) of Buddhism," Zojoji Temple.
http://www.zojoji.or.jp/en/index.html#top.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. "General Article: Grant's World Tour," PBS.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/grant-tour/.
5. "Main Temple of Jodo shu (Pure Land Sect) of Buddhism," Zojoji Temple.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
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