Sōgen-ji, the kappa temple

In front of you is Sōgen-ji, a Buddhist temple of the Sōtō school of Zen that no one in the neighbourhood calls by its real name. To the locals it is Kappa-dera, the temple of the kappa.

1What is a kappa?

The kappa is one of the best-loved creatures of Japanese folklore: a water being the size of a child, with a shell, a beak and a hollow on top of its head filled with water that gives it its strength. It was said to drag the unwary into rivers, but also that, if treated well, it could become an ally. And it adores cucumbers.

2The merchant and the canal

In the early 19th century this area was low-lying and flooded easily. A raincoat merchant, Kappaya Kihachi, paid out of his own pocket to have a drainage canal dug, the Shinhorikawa. That much is documented: Kihachi died in 1814 and was buried in this temple, his family's temple.

Tradition adds that the work kept getting stuck, and that the kappa of the Sumida River, whom Kihachi had once helped, came out at night to finish the job.

A play on words helped the story along: kappa (合羽), the raincoat of his trade, sounds exactly like kappa (河童), the creature. The temple even keeps an object presented as the mummified hand of a kappa, which is not freely on display.

3What to look for

• The kappa figures that populate the temple grounds.
• Offerings of cucumber, if anyone has left some.
• The Kappa-dō hall, dedicated to the creature.