Jōsenji: The Head Priest Sends His Kappa

Place

Seiryūzan Jōsenji (清流山常泉寺)

Visiting information ↓

Kanagawa Temples & Shrines

Visited: September 21, 2022 & September 27, 2026
Published: October 10, 2026

Stone kappa figures of different sizes gathered around a small pond edged with long grass, with figures of monks and kappa on rocks behind — The pond, fully staffed.

By the temple’s count, there are more than 300 kappa at Jōsenji. They are here on the head priest’s behalf.

He would like visitors to feel at ease, the temple explains, but rarely gets the chance to spend time with each one. So the kappa were placed around the grounds to do it for him.

Kappa are the water creatures of Japanese folklore, with a beak, a shell and a dish of water on top of the head. The choice is not random. Jōsenji’s full name, Seiryūzan Jōsenji, means roughly “Clear Stream Mountain, Temple of the Constant Spring”. According to the temple, it comes from the Buddhist name of the man behind its founding, in the late sixteenth century. Because of that name, and water that has welled up in its grounds, the temple enshrines kappa as gods of water.

A stone kappa in a wide straw-style hat and a pink apron, holding a staff, with the temple name 常泉寺 painted in white down its front, among green leaves — One of the welcome party, wearing the temple’s name like a name badge.

Here and there

Just inside the gate, on the left, stands a monument to Tōkei Gakusha, a public elementary school that opened at the temple in 1873 and moved away soon after.

Beside the monument, a kappa is reading.

A tall dark stone monument carved with large characters, a dark kappa figure reading a book beside it, and small seated monk figures gathered on rocks in front — The monument, with smaller figures gathered in front as if for a lesson.

The school took its name from an old Chinese saying: peach and plum trees say nothing, yet a path forms beneath them. People come without being called. At Jōsenji, someone goes out to meet them anyway.

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A stone kappa standing upright and carrying a second, smaller kappa on its back, both with dish-shaped heads — One kappa giving another a piggyback.

A stone kappa lying on its side on a slab, its head propped on one hand, with ferns and large leaves behind — Another lies with its head propped on one hand. Not everyone is on duty.

A small stone kappa with a shell on its back, bowing its head over a dark pot filled with blue-green glass marbles and fallen leaves — This one bows over a small pot of glass marbles.

A small white ceramic kappa with round blue eyes sitting in the shadow beneath a stone structure, half hidden by long grass — A small white kappa, keeping a low profile under a stone ledge.

A round ceramic pot on a stone base, with two kappa modelled in relief on its side — Two more, in relief on the side of a pot.

A large dark planter shaped like a kappa’s head, with tufts of grass and a red spider lily growing out of the top like hair — A planter shaped like a kappa’s head, with grass and a spider lily for hair.

Five hundred disciples

Kappa are not the only crowd in the garden. Among the rocks, ferns and fallen leaves sit the Five Hundred Arhats, the disciples of the Buddha, in all sorts of postures.

The temple is more than four centuries old. The statues are not. In 1988, the temple and the stone sculptor Kurata Tatsuhiko set out to make them, and the work took more than thirty years. The last of them were finished in 2022.

One sculptor made all five hundred.

A garden of many small stone arhat figures scattered among rocks, ferns and fallen leaves, in different poses — Disciples among the rocks and fallen leaves.

Dozens of pale stone arhat figures crowded among shrubs and rocks in another part of the garden — Another corner of the garden.

Some of the groups include a kappa. A disciple has one at his knee, or an arm around one.

A seated stone arhat with a small kappa crouching at his knee, on a mossy rock — A kappa at a disciple’s knee.

A group of weathered stone arhats on a large rock, some holding or leaning on small kappa, one kappa reaching towards the face of a figure holding a book — Disciples and kappa, sharing a rock. One kappa is reaching for a reading disciple’s face.

I first came in September 2022, a few months after the disciples were finished. The spider lilies were in full bloom between them, red and white. Jōsenji calls itself the temple of kappa, but also the temple of flowers.

When I came back, in September 2026, the lilies were nearly over. The temple says its white spider lilies bloom a little earlier than the red ones. This time, the white were mostly past it. The red were still going.

Stone arhat figures and a stone tablet among red and white spider lilies in full bloom — September 2022.

A cluster of white spider lilies against dark leaves, several flowers browning and wilting — September 2026.

Bright red spider lilies in the foreground, with a stone figure and a small roofed stone carving behind them — Red spider lilies, with a figure under a small roof behind them.

Ring gently

In a small open hall stands the Enmusubi Bodhisattva, who ties people to good connections: in love, but also, the temple says, in work, study, health, family and friendship.

It was made by the sculptor Yabuuchi Satoshi, working with the temple’s head priest. Yabuuchi also created Sento-kun, the antlered mascot of Nara’s 2010 celebrations, held 1,300 years after Japan’s capital moved there. Elsewhere in the grounds stands a figure of a familiar shape.

A small dark bronze figure of a child with deer antlers, standing under a little wooden roof on a stone base — Not Sento-kun, according to the temple. His younger brother.

The bodhisattva comes with instructions. Ring the bell first.

Ring it gently, the temple warns. Too loud, and the bodhisattva will be startled and will not tie your thread.

Then stroke the bodhisattva while making your wish, silently. Of the two threads used in the ritual, tie one to the ring and keep the other on you.

A bronze bodhisattva head with large round eyes set on a tall red granite pedestal, ringed by a thick wreath of many-coloured knotted threads, with two small bronze geckos at the base — The Enmusubi Bodhisattva, ringed with threads left by people who came to ask.

If the wish comes true, there is a procedure for that too. Ring the bell gently again, rest your right hand on the bodhisattva’s head, and walk once around it, clockwise. Report the good news in a small voice. Then walk another half circle and tie your thread.

Everything after the asking, the temple adds, is down to your own efforts.

Even here, the kappa have got in. On all four sides of the hall, the temple says, kappa are carved into the kaerumata, struts named after the splayed legs of a frog.

A wooden frog-leg strut between two beams, carved with two adult kappa sitting side by side and a small kappa on either side — A kappa family, in a strut named after a frog.

Yabuuchi’s work turns up elsewhere in the grounds as well.

A small dark bronze figure holding a long-handled deck brush and a bucket, standing behind a low wooden railing in a small wooden shrine — Kobosuna-sama, roughly “Lord Don’t Spill”. According to the temple, he stands at an entrance with a deck brush and a bucket, making sure nothing gets spilled.

Not everyone is a kappa

The kappa do most of the welcoming, but they have colleagues.

Fuku-tanuki, the lucky tanuki, or raccoon dog, has a torii of his own. When I visited, someone had left him a can of coffee.

A large stone tanuki with a round belly under a stone torii bearing a plaque reading 福狸, with two drink cans in front of its base and a ceramic tanuki beside it — Fuku-tanuki under his own torii.

There is also a stone carved with the Buddha’s footprints. A sign explains that it shows the footprints and a monk receiving them in both hands. The footprints all but invite you to step into them. The sign asks you not to.

A stone slab carved with a pair of large footprints, with red spider lilies and a small stone figure behind — The Buddha’s footprints, with red spider lilies behind.

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A stone relief of a many-armed Kannon on a lotus pedestal, with flowers placed in front — Senju Kannon, the thousand-armed bodhisattva. If anyone could greet every visitor in person, it would be her.

A large stone Jizō with small children clinging to him, standing on a lotus above rows of small Jizō carved in relief — A Jizō with children clinging to him, above rows of smaller Jizō.

Six standing Jizō carved side by side in a niche of a single rounded stone, surrounded by leaves — Six Jizō carved from a single stone, elbows in.

Two small figures standing close together, carved in a hollow of a dark rock — Two figures, close together, in a hollow of rock.

The family business

Even the Seven Lucky Gods here are kappa, lined up along a path in pink aprons.

A row of stone kappa figures in pink aprons on stone pedestals under small wooden roofs, lining both sides of a garden path — The Kappa Seven Lucky Gods.

The temple’s website also mentions a Kappa Family Club, for people who like kappa or flowers. The head of the household is the head priest.

I did not meet him. His kappa looked after me instead.

A box of small kappa holds fortunes: pick the one you like, pull the string, and your fortune comes out. Mine said shōkichi, small luck.

An open box of small green kappa-shaped fortune holders with red aprons, arranged in rows, under a sign reading おみくじ and a 500-yen price tag — Kappa fortunes, 500 yen each when I visited.

Even speaking for the head priest, the kappa do not overpromise.

Visit this place

Temple

Jōsenji (常泉寺)

In Fukuda, Yamato. The kappa, the Five Hundred Arhats and the Enmusubi Bodhisattva are all within the temple grounds (admission charged).

2176 Fukuda, Yamato, Kanagawa 242-0024, Japan

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Practical Information

Access: About 7 minutes on foot from the west exit of Kōza-Shibuya Station (Odakyū Enoshima Line)
Opening hours: 9:00–16:30; last admission 16:00
Admission: High school students and older: ¥300; elementary and junior high school students: ¥150. Free for the holder of a disability certificate (the holder only)
Parking: Limited, and priority goes to people visiting graves; may be unavailable around the equinox weeks and during Buddhist services. The temple recommends coming by train.
Visitor rules: Tripods, monopods and camera stands may not be used. No pets. No drinking or smoking in the grounds.
Flower seasons: Mitsumata (paper bush): mid-March to early April. White spider lilies: mid- to late September.
Official website: Jōsenji — Hours and access (Japanese)

Information last checked: October 9, 2026 (access, hours, admission, parking, visitor rules and flower seasons).

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