Tales of Old Japan - Maybe You Like It

Note
Of the many fair scenes of Yedo, none is better worth visiting than the
temple of Zôjôji, one of the two great burial-places of the Shoguns; indeed,
if you wish to see the most beautiful spots of any Oriental city, ask
for the cemeteries: the homes of the dead are ever the loveliest places.
Standing in a park of glorious firs and pines beautifully kept, which contains
quite a little town of neat, clean-looking houses, together with
thirty-four temples for the use of the priests and attendants of the
shrines, the main temple, with its huge red pillars supporting a heavy
Chinese roof of grey tiles, is approached through a colossal open hall
which leads into a stone courtyard. At one end of this courtyard is a
broad flight of steps—the three or four lower ones of stone, and the upper
ones of red wood. At these the visitor is warned by a notice to take
off his boots, a request which Englishmen, with characteristic disregard
of the feelings of others, usually neglect to comply with. The main hall of
the temple is of large proportions, and the high altar is decorated with
fine bronze candelabra, incense-burners, and other ornaments, and on
two days of the year a very curious collection of pictures representing
the five hundred gods, whose images are known to all persons who have
visited Canton, is hung along the walls. The big bell outside the main
hall is rather remarkable on account of the great beauty of the deep bass
waves of sound which it rolls through the city than on account of its size,
which is as nothing when compared with that of the big bells of Moscow
and Peking; still it is not to be despised even in that respect, for it is ten
feet high and five feet eight inches in diameter, while its metal is a foot
thick: it was hung up in the year 1673. But the chief objects of interest in
these beautiful grounds are the chapels attached to the tombs of the
Shoguns.
It is said that as Prince Iyéyasu was riding into Yedo to take possession
of his new castle, the Abbot of Zôjôji, an ancient temple which then stood
at Hibiya, near the castle, went forth and waited before the gate to do
homage to the Prince. Iyéyasu, seeing that the Abbot was no ordinary
man, stopped and asked his name, and entered the temple to rest himself.
The smooth-spoken monk soon found such favour with Iyéyasu,
that he chose Zôjôji to be his family temple; and seeing that its grounds
were narrow and inconveniently near the castle, he caused it to be removed
to its present site. In the year 1610 the temple was raised, by the
intercession of Iyéyasu, to the dignity of the Imperial Temples, which,
until the last revolution, were presided over by princes of the blood; and
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