If you are on your way to Atago Shrine or even the NHK Museum of Broadcasting, nearby is a Buddhist Temple known as Eikaninsaru Temple.
Actually, you’ll find numerous shrines and temples throughout the area but it’s best to use Google Maps because it’s around many residential homes and business offices. You can get lost, so best to refer to Google Maps.
Once you enter Eikaninsaru Temple, to the right are Jizo statues, child statues that are clothed and decorated. But they also represent the souls of unborn children. Those who died before birth, as well as those yet to be born.
In modern Japan, Jizo is the guardian of unborn, aborted, miscarried, and stillborn babies. This is not part of earlier Buddhist traditions from mainland Asia but they are modern adaptations unique only to Japan.
Right by the jizo statues and a statue with a big head is of Fukurokuju, considered one of the seven lucky gods (shichifukujin) that grant good luck and his origin is traced back in China. He used to be a hermit during the Chinese Song dynasty, and is considered the reincarnation of the Taoist god Hsuan-wu. He is a god of wisdom, luck, longevity, wealth and happiness.
It’s important to note that depending on what source you are looking at for shichifukujin, the seventh lucky god tends to feature Fukurokuju or Kichijoten (adapted from the Hindu goddess Lakshmi and even replaced Fukurokuju in the 1783 edition of the Butsuzozui compendium).
You will also find a cemetery behind the temple and buried behind is Sugita Genpaku (1733-1817), a Japanese scholar known for translating the Kaitai Shinso (New Book of Anatomy).
He was instrumental in creating an anatomy book in Japan because at the time, he saw western drawings of human organs were more accurate than the drawings in Chinese handbooks and so referring to the Dutch book of anatomy, he had Japanese translators work on this difficult job and at a rate of one page a week, the final work was published in 1774.
But for the most part, it’s a small temple but worth checking out, especially for
