Introduction
A new year’s resolution to eat more vegetables is probably made easier by getting a large variety of them in your diet, and also varying the ways you eat them. A little divine intervention never hurts either. If the last round of vegetable shrines wasn’t enough to convince you to eat your greens, this collection of charming vegetable shrines and temples might at least offer a few fun trip ideas.
Aubergines
Technically speaking, aubergines (or eggplants, if you’re American) are fruits rather than vegetables — a berry by botanical definition. However, it’s generally used as a vegetable in most cuisines worldwide, and Japan is no exception.
Japanese aubergines are typically thin-skinned, often a dark, glossy purple, sometimes almost indigo in its colouring — so much so that one of the darkest shades of indigo is called ‘nasu-kon,’ or ‘aubergine-navy.’
Referred to as ‘nasu’ or ‘nasubi,’ they are considered auspicious items. If the first dream of the new year features Mount Fuji, a hawk, and an aubergine, it traditionally means a good year ahead. There is an oft-used Japanese proverb,「親の意見と茄子の花は千に一つも無駄はない」or ‘a parent’s advice and aubergine flowers are never wasted.’ When growing eggplants, any flower that appears is guaranteed to fruit. Moreover, ‘nasu 茄子’ is a homophone for the 成す, to ‘fulfil’ or ‘achieve.’ 願いをなす negai wo nasu — implying that eggplants make wishes come true.
Aubergines are less an object of worship at shrines and temples, and more of an auspicious add-on element to the rest of the institution. For instance, a few temples across Japan feature なすの腰かけ eggplants-as-benches/stools, which are literally sculptures of aubergines you can sit on and make a wish for good luck. Kaijusenji Temple in Kyoto has one such eggplant bench, as does Tsunashiki Tenmangu Shrine in Hyogo. The latter shrine does, however, have an eggplant enshrined in the main hall.
Over in Fukui, an eggplant sculpture sits behind the chōzuya, or water ablution pavilion, at the entrance to Tsurugi Shrine. (Fun fact: at the same shrine is also another sub-shrine with a very noticeable and prominent phallus sculpture — no prizes as to guessing what that is for.)
Perhaps the most famous temple aubergine (if there was ever such a category) is the stone eggplant sculpture at Unpenji Temple in Tokushima. Located near the summit of Mount Unpenji, it was founded in 789 by the great monk Kobo Daishi (who is credited with founding many, many such temples) and is Stop No. 66 on the Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage.
The sculpture is called the ‘o-tanominasu’ — a pun on ‘nasu’ for ‘fulfilment’ but also ‘tanomimasu’ or ‘to ask for.’ Visitors should climb through the hole, sit on the eggplant, and write down their wishes.
A few sources point to Nakagiri Tenjin Shrine in Aichi having once been called Nasu Tenjin, where worshippers would make offerings of eggplants to help alleviate their stomach pains. Being an extremely minor shrine among minor shrines, it is difficult to verify the truth of these claims.
Cucumber
The Gion district in Kyoto is most famous for its association with geisha. What is far less widely known (at least in the Anglosphere) is that its name refers to the Gion cult. This Shinto faith once centered around Gozu Tennō, the Ox-Headed Heavenly King overseeing disease and healing, but was forced to center Susanoo-no-mikoto the storm god by the Meiji government during the Separation of Shinto and Buddhism during the Meiji era.
Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto is, of course, part of the Gion faith, and during their eponymous festival in July, it is customary for the parishioners to abstain from cucumber. This is because the shrine crest resembles the cross-section of a cucumber; also, they were supposedly Gozu Tennō’s favourite food. The two other main shrines of the Gion cult are Hiromine Shrine in Hyogo, and Tsushima Shrine in Aichi.
Up north in the Tohoku region is another Yasaka Shrine, this time a sub-shrine of Yachi Hachimangu in Yamagata. On Marine Day in July, the shrine hosts the Cucumber Tennō Festival — also nicknamed the Kappa Festival, since the cucumber is strongly associated with this supernatural being in Japanese folklore. At this festival, parishioners make offerings of the first cucumbers of the season, and make prayers to ward off disease and invite healing.
Incidentally, a festival of the same name is held annually on 14 July in Sukagawa City, Fukushima. Cucumbers are a local specialty there, and it’s said that offering two cucumbers and then taking one home afterwards to eat will prevent illness for the rest of the year. The history of this festival is somewhat difficult to verify, but according to its official page on the city’s website, the associated deity was a former feudal lord who owned a number of cucumber fields during his lifetime.
Over in Kitakata City, Fukushima, there’s a tiny neighbourhood shrine by the name of Nishi-Yotsuya Suga Shrine — so obscure that it doesn’t have a pin on Google Maps yet. They hold an annual Gozu Tennō Festival on the fifteenth day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, where visitors exchange an offering of two cucumbers for a lucky talisman and one of the cucumbers in return. Inside this talisman is some rice, dried squid, and kelp. According to local legend, the cucumbers were instrumental in helping to stop a raging epidemic, which they believed was divine retribution from a wrathful deity.
In Gōtsu City, Shimane, there is a legend associated with Yamanobe Shrine that goes something like this. There once lived near the Gō River a young man named Kōsuke and his ailing mother. One day, the young man caught far more fish than expected out on his boat. Remembering his mother’s words — ‘the river’s bounty belongs to everyone’ — he returned home without attempting to catch more.
Then, he spied a cucumber floating down the river, carrying a shimmering box that resembled a small shrine. Opening it, they found a deity within (just go with it). Kōsuke and his mother began to worship this deity every day, and her illness was miraculously cured. Joining forces with their fellow villagers, they rebuilt the shrine into a more suitable structure to venerate this deity.
On the day of the festival, someone pointed out that the deity had arrived on a cucumber, and so everyone agreed to refrain from eating cucumbers on this day.
Kanpyō
Kanpyō is a variety of calabash gourd — most people may be familiar with it in its dried-then-simmered form as a filling for Edo-style rolled sushi. While it was originally grown in the Osaka region, today, Tochigi Prefecture is Japan’s top producer of dried kanpyō strips, accounting for over 90% of domestic production — a nice little piece of trivia to throw out when you’re grasping at straws during awkward conversational lulls.
Jokes aside, Japan’s only (known) kanpyō shrine is Seichū Shrine in Tochigi. It was founded in 1712 by the Torii family, a samurai clan of the Mibu Domain. The shrine venerates Torii Mototada, one of their ancestors and a military commander who served under Tokugawa Ieyasu. He doesn’t seem to have anything to do with kanpyō per se; rather, one prevailing theory suggests that it was one of his descendants who introduced kanpyō cultivation to the Mibu area.
Either way, what is clear is that kanpyō cultivation flourished from the 17th century onwards after the Torii clan arrived in this region. Today, the shrine has a large stone sculpture of a calabash gourd, a monument commemorating the 300th anniversary of the origin of dried kanpyō strips. Even the most banal things are worth remembering.
Squash (Kabocha, Japanese pumpkin)
Myōzenji Temple in Nishio City, Aichi, was originally a Tendai sect temple built between 729 and 749, that later converted to the Jōdo sect. It is popularly referred to as Hazukannon — because of its principal object of worship — and‘Kabocha-dera’ or ‘Pumpkin Temple.’ There is a story associated with the temple that goes something like this.
A long time ago, the temple’s head priest received an oracle from the Kannon Bodhisattva: I shall bestow fortune and virtue upon you; go you to the shore. Upon reaching the beach near the temple, he found numerous round objects — were they fruit, or vegetable? — washed ashore. The priest and the villagers boiled them, and found them to be sweet and exceedingly delicious. Their complexions improved, and their countenance became most fair.
As with such legends, the story should be taken with a pinch of salt. However, Myōzenji Temple does live up to its nickname, which it acquired sometime during the 1990s.. It hosts the Pumpkin Summit from September through to December, and people from all over the country donate kabocha to the temple. An award ceremony (presumably to determine The Best Kabocha) is held in late December, usually around the winter solstice. Visitors can try kabocha shiruko (pumpkin and red bean soup) made from all the donated squash, as well as kabocha tea made from the roasted stems, leaves, and seeds.
Nozawana
Nozawana is a form of turnip green rich in vitamin C and typically consumed as a salted pickle. Largely cultivated and consumed in Nagano, nozawana takes its name from Nozawa Onsen.
Kenmeiji Temple is a Soto Zen temple founded in 1584, and is considered the birthplace of nozawana. This history dates back to 1756, when the then-head priest returned from Kyoto with seeds from a variety of turnip called Tennoji kabura. However, there must have been something in the soil or climate in Nozawa Onsen, as the plants grew larger leaves and stems than the original in Kyoto, mutating into what we know as nozawana today — at least, according to the temple.
Nozawana may be widely cultivated now, but visitors can still buy seeds of the original strain at the temple, where they continue to grow the greens in their fields. Fun fact: It was originally called ‘kabuna’ even in Nozawa Onsen, but took on its current name sometime in the first few decades of the 20th century, when visitors to the ski fields tried and enjoyed this leafy vegetable for the first time.
By Florentyna Leow