A little more
of Ama.

Ama · JP

Tokoji

Tōkōji (東光寺) is a small Buddhist temple in Imugi, a quiet hamlet in the Ifuku area of Shippō-chō in Ama City, Aichi — a short drift south-west of Nagoya across the flat rice-field country of the Nōbi plain. The Ama City tourism authorities describe it as a temple of Tendai lineage founded in the Tenpyō era of the 8th century, so it has served the same handful of streets for more than a thousand years, and its principal image is Yakushi Rurikō Nyorai, the Medicine Buddha long propitiated for healing and bodily wellbeing. This is not a monument you queue to photograph; it is a working neighbourhood temple whose appeal is precisely that intimacy. Its grounds shelter a kurogane-mochi evergreen that was damaged in the war and is still growing, presented locally as a living plea for peace; in early summer the precincts fill with coloured wish-slips for a Tanabata prayer gathering, and in August the footpath between the temple and the district's Jizō figure is dressed with tanzaku and Bon lanterns. Come for an unhurried hour, a short walk from the bus stop, and a look at how a Japanese temple stays woven into a small community.