川口善光寺雨晴

About this print

This picture shows Zenkoji temple in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, as the rain clears. It is one sheet in Kiyochika Gajo (Kiyochika Picture Album), a collection of works by the Meiji-era ukiyo-e artist Kobayashi Kiyochika, and the year it was drawn is unclear.

Kawaguchi's Zenkoji is said to have been founded early in the Kamakura period by the monk Joson, and it enshrines an Amida triad in the same form as the one at Zenkoji in Shinano (Nagano Prefecture). In the Edo period it stood on the Nikko Onarimichi, the road the shoguns took to Nikko, close to a ferry crossing on the Arakawa River, and it became popular as a temple people from Edo could easily visit.

Utagawa Hiroshige also depicted it as "Kawaguchi Ferry and Zenkoji" in Meisho Edo Hyakkei (One Hundred Famous Views of Edo). The temple still stands beside the Arakawa River in Funado-cho, Kawaguchi, and its gilt bronze standing statue of Seishi Bosatsu, the bodhisattva of wisdom, is designated a cultural property of Saitama Prefecture.

Glossary