Kasadera Kannon

The open-air market comes back on every day with a six in it: the 6th, the 16th and the 26th.

A maidservant from Narumi saw a statue of Kannon left out in the rain and put her own straw hat on its head. A passing nobleman noticed her, married her, and with her rebuilt the temple, which takes its name from that gesture: ‘the temple covered by the hat’. On the 6th, 16th and 26th of each month the grounds fill with open-air stalls, while inside the 10:00 and 13:00 prayers are held.

Kasadera Kannon, in full Ryūfuku-ji, is a temple of the esoteric Shingon school in Minami Ward. Tradition has it founded in 733: a monk named Zenkō carved an eleven-faced Kannon from a log washed ashore on Yobitsugi beach and built a chapel for it six hundred and fifty metres further south. The temple moved here when the Fujiwara couple rebuilt it, and in 1238 the monk Agan rebuilt it a second time: the bell cast then is still in the bell tower and is a cultural property of Aichi Prefecture. Today's buildings (main hall, two-storey pagoda, guardian gate and bell tower) date from between 1645 and 1820, and in 2017 the municipality designated them as a group. It is one of the four Kannon of Owari, the temples that stand on the four sides of Nagoya Castle: each year one of them is the temple of the lucky direction, and in 2026 it is Kasadera's turn.

ℹ️ The halls are open 8:00–16:00, and it is within those hours that you get amulets and stamps or book a service. If you want a prayer, go to the counter in the main hall twenty or thirty minutes before 10:00 or 13:00. The temple's website does not publish any admission price for the grounds. The car parks also close at 16:00, and the east one cannot be used on the 6th, 16th and 26th and around 3 February: on those days you come by train, three minutes’ walk from Motokasadera on the Meitetsu line, twenty from JR Kasadera Station. Paid or group filming must be authorised beforehand, and drones are banned.

🚉 Moto-Kasadera · 6 min walk

Sources: kasadera.jp · kasadera.jp · kasadera.jp · kasadera.jp · kasadera.jp · kasadera.jp · city.nagoya.jp

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