Ryufukuji

Good to know

• Buddhist temple
• Under 1 kmfrom Aikawa center
• Restroom
• Official site
• 3.8 / 532 reviews
• Aikawa

A Temple Born of the Warring States Era

Ryufukuji (龍福寺) traces its founding to the closing years of the Sengoku period, when the turbulence of civil war was finally giving way to unified rule. The temple belongs to the Soto Zen school, with Shakyamuni Buddha as its principal image. Its full name — Kaizozan Ryufukuji — draws on the Avatamsaka Sutra's imagery of the ocean as a vast storehouse of treasures, a name that would later inspire the most remarkable structure on the grounds.

In its early days the mountain name was Koizumi-yama ("Small Well Mountain"), a humble local name eventually replaced by the more poetic Kaizozan ("Sea-Store Mountain"). Ryufukuji served as the head temple for other congregations in the area, including Kyushoji and Toshoji, anchoring Zen practice in the Nakatsu district for centuries.

The Dragon Palace Gate

What makes Ryufukuji remarkable is its sanmon (mountain gate), built in 1778 during the tenure of the eighth abbot Shizan Suishu. Standing nine meters tall with a five-and-a-half-meter frontage, the two-story tower gate is constructed entirely of keyaki (zelkova) wood — a choice that speaks to both durability and the prestige of the timber in 18th-century carpentry. The roof, originally thatched and now finished in copper, sweeps into an elegant irimoya (hip-and-gable) form crowned by a dramatic karahafu — the arched gable that curves like a wave.

The most striking feature is the combination of a white-plastered base with the dark timber tower rising above it, giving the whole structure an uncanny resemblance to Ryugu-jo, the legendary Dragon Palace beneath the sea from the folktale of Urashima Taro. The architect is believed to have deliberately chosen this form to echo the temple's ocean-themed mountain name, Kaizozan. The gate blends wa-style (Japanese) and kara-style (Chinese) structural elements, with intricate bracket sets and carvings that harmonize across its relatively compact frame. Craftsmen from Hannara, a village known for its temple carpenters, are credited with its construction.

The town of Aikawa designated the gate a tangible cultural property in 1979, recognizing it as an architectural treasure in its own right. The gate bears the name Nengekan — "Gate of the Flower Sermon" — a reference to the Zen tradition in which the Buddha silently held up a flower and the monk Kasyapa understood.

Visiting

Ryufukuji sits in Nakatsu, a residential district of Aikawa in the Sagamino plateau region south of the Tokyo metropolitan sprawl. The town's official access guide recommends taking a bus from Odakyu-Hon-Atsugi Station (bound for Mimase or Aikawa Bus Center) and walking a few minutes from the Nakatsu stop. The temple grounds are quiet and contemplative — a small-scale pilgrimage to an architecturally unique gate far from the tourist crowds of Kamakura or Kyoto.

For those combining a visit with a broader day trip, Aikawa offers hiking trails through forested ridges, the photogenic Shiokawa Falls, and pastoral stops like working farms and bakeries along Route 412. The town rewards slow exploration and a car helps stitch together these scattered attractions, though the bus from Atsugi provides a workable alternative.

Why It Matters

Ryufukuji's mountain gate is one of those rare structures where folklore, doctrine, and craftsmanship converge in timber and plaster. A temple carpenter in 1778 looked at the name "Sea-Store Mountain" and decided the gate should look like a palace rising from the waves. The result survived nearly two and a half centuries of weather, war, and rural indifference to stand as a protected treasure — a small monument to the imaginative daring that could exist even in a modest country parish.