Jōkan-ji, Buddhist temple in Minami-Senju, Japan
Jōkan-ji is a Buddhist temple in the Minami-Senju district of Tokyo with a main hall dedicated to Amida Buddha and several memorial stones scattered across the grounds. The wooden buildings follow traditional Japanese temple design with curved roofs and open verandas.
The temple was established in 1655 and served as a regular place of worship for Buddhist devotees. After the great earthquake of 1855, thousands of courtesans from the nearby Yoshiwara district were buried here, which gave the site its alternate name Nagekomi-dera.
The temple grounds preserve stone monuments inscribed with Japanese poetry and commemorate writer Nagai Kafu, who chronicled life in the nearby pleasure district. Visitors can see how Buddhist tradition and literary memory intertwine in this corner of old Tokyo.
The temple sits one minute on foot from Minowa Station on the Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line and opens daily until 16:30 in winter or 17:00 in summer. The grounds are compact and a visit typically takes no more than 20 or 30 minutes.
The grounds hold the Yoshiwara Memorial Tower, which contains the remains of roughly 11,000 courtesans from the historic pleasure district. Inscriptions on the tower document the names and hard lives of the women who found their final rest here during the 19th century.
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