Japan Lights: Zōjō-ji temple's ground

Zōjō-ji temple's ground

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Apart from the Main Hall and the gates, there’s a lot more to see on temple’s ground.

Between the gate and the Main Hall is a place for purifying the visitors. It’s well where people can wash their hands using the water and metal tiny buckets (it’s hard to call them “spoons”) on long sticks.

The well meant for purifying the visitors before they enter the temple.

Right next to the main hall there is a “garden” with a row of statues of children and windmills. The statues are symbolising all unborn children of Japan- their parents can choose a statue and decorate it with clothes and toys, as well as leave a gift for bodhisattva Jizō (believed to be a guide during the transmigration of the soul, there’s a lot of his statues around the temple)to ensure his protection for the children and ensuring their afterlife.

Here's a movie with the mentioned garden (I'm sorry for the low quality, unfortunately I had my camera set in a wrong mode that day):

Between the main temple and the garden there's this place meant for leaving buring candles:

Beside the temple there’s an old cemetery with some interesting graves, unfortunately locked for public.

Right next to cemetery there is a small hill with a grave (probably) guarded by 4 statues.

Another attraction are the temple’s cats walking around:

There’s also a Himalayan cedar planted by US president Ulyssess Grant in 1879 and a Mausoleum of Tokugawa Shoguns located on temple’s ground, but unfortunately I couldn’t find the tree and mausoleum was closed.