Cat Temple Shozen-in

Standing guard in front of the gate to Shozen-in, a small temple in the mountains of Kumamoto, are a pair of cats rather than the more usual nio or komainu. The reason relates to the story of why the temple was founded in 1625

Previously a temple, Fumonji, stood on this spot but was burned down in 1582, and the resident priest,  Seiyo Houin, killed. According to the legend he had been falsely accused of plotting against the local lord.

Following his death, his mother went to a local shrine and there bit her finger and painted the kami statue with the blood and also got her cat to lick the blood. This was all some type of curse and withcraft. A series of misfortunes began affecting the lords family, and some stories involve the cat shapeshifting into a beautiful woman.

Subsequently the lord decided to construct a new temple to pacify the spirit of the son who had been killed.  Pacifying angry spirits and ghosts is a huge part of Japanese religious practise. The disasters ceased.

Earlier I have posted about the Kannon-do of the temple, and of a Cat Shrine in Kagoshima

Cat Shrine

Cat Shrine

Nekogami Shrine is located in the grounds of Sengan-en gardens in Kagoshima and was moved to this location when the Shimazu family moved into their summer villa here after 1868.

The story is that the 17th Shimazu lord took seven cats with him when he took part in Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea in 1592. The legend says that the cats were used as timekeepers on the journey as time could be told by the dilation of their pupils in the sunlight, but I would take that story with many pinches of salt.

On his return to Japan only two cats had survived and so in 1602  he enshrined them in Nekogami Shrine. It is now a hugely popular spot for cat lovers who leave ema votive plaques to memorialize cats who have died and also to pray for the health of living cats.

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