Manpukuji: Yoshitsune’s Waiting Room

Place

Ryūgozan Iōin Manpukuji (龍護山医王院満福寺)

Visited: October 10, 2026
Published: October 12, 2026

A grey stone statue of Benkei in a hood, seated at a stone desk with a brush in his hand and a scroll unrolled in front of him, under pine branches, beside a tall stone carved with the name of the Koshigoe letter — Benkei at his desk. The stone behind him gives the letter’s name: Koshigoe-jō.

Benkei, the warrior monk who served Minamoto no Yoshitsune, is remembered for many things: his size, his strength, the seven weapons he is said to have carried, and dying on his feet, full of arrows.

At Manpukuji, he is remembered for paperwork.

In 1185, Yoshitsune had just destroyed the Taira, his family’s great rivals, at the sea battle of Dan-no-ura. But he had fallen out of favour with his elder half-brother, Yoritomo, who ruled from Kamakura. Travelling there from Kyoto, Yoshitsune was refused entry and held at Koshigoe, just outside the town.

According to the temple, he stayed at Manpukuji while he waited, and Benkei drafted a letter pleading his case. It was addressed not to Yoritomo himself but to one of his closest advisers, Ōe no Hiromoto, asking him to intervene. It is known as the Koshigoe-jō, the Koshigoe letter.

It did not work.

The draft

I paid 200 yen at reception to go into the main hall, where the letter lies in a glass case. It is presented as the draft.

There is a reason a draft would stay behind. The letter is said to have come out six characters short. The missing words were added, by Benkei or, in another telling, by Yoshitsune himself, and the finished letter went to Kamakura. The one with the mistake stayed here.

Of all the words to leave out, these were the six: 不顧為敵亡命.

They mean “heedless of losing my life to the enemy”.

A long handwritten letter mounted under glass in a display case, with three wooden trays of woodblocks, long staffs and a printed copy of the letter on the shelf below — The letter under glass. The label below marks woodblocks of it, made in the Edo period.

The letter’s later career went better. In the Edo period, it was included in a collection of old letters and widely read as a schoolbook. Whether Yoshitsune, or Benkei, actually wrote it is another matter. Its authenticity has been questioned.

Outside, the temple keeps a reminder of the other Benkei.

A large round stone pitted with small holes, set on a stone base, beside a stone marker naming it as Benkei’s juggling stone — Benkei no Tedama-ishi: Benkei’s juggling stone, named after the small beanbags children toss and catch.

He does not seem to have been easy to work beside. Benkei is said to have been grinding ink for the draft when crickets started chirping by a pond. He shouted at them to stop. The crickets at Manpukuji, the story goes, have not chirped since.

Told again

The temple tells the scene more than once. Under the eaves of the main hall, it is carved in wood.

A weathered wooden carving under the eaves of the main hall: a hooded figure writing with a brush at a low desk on the left, and a seated warrior in armour among pine branches on the right — Benkei at a low desk, and Yoshitsune in armour, waiting beside him.

Inside, the story runs across the fusuma, the sliding doors of the main hall: thirty-two painted panels covering Yoshitsune’s life. They are done in lacquer, with techniques borrowed from Kamakura-bori, the local craft of carving wood and finishing it in lacquer. They are said to have been made in 1985, by a carpenter then living in nearby Kugenuma.

One set of doors shows the letter. Here the roles are switched. Yoshitsune holds the long white scroll; Benkei watches from behind a tree.

Four lacquered sliding doors painted with a nobleman in red holding a long white scroll and a white-hooded figure behind a pale, gnarled tree trunk, with a label above the doors — *Koshigoe-jō*, according to the label above the doors.

The label above that set ends by saying that from here, his tragic journey begins. The rest of the doors follow him on it.

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Two sliding doors on a pale blue ground, painted with a woman in a brown robe collapsed on the ground and a warrior with a bow and sword standing beside her — The label reads *Shizuka, Collapsing in Tears*. Shizuka was Yoshitsune’s lover; the warrior beside her is walking away.

Two sliding doors on a dark red ground, one painted with small white butterfly-like shapes, the other with a figure in a tall black hat and red robes holding an open white fan, a sword at the waist — A dancer with a white fan, probably Shizuka again. She did get into Kamakura: in 1186 she was ordered to dance there for Yoritomo, and used her songs to say how much she missed his brother.

Two sliding doors painted with two travellers walking through slanting strokes, one in a wide hat with a wooden pack on his back, the other in a white hood, both carrying staffs — Two travellers with packs and staffs, one in Benkei’s white hood, probably on the long road north.

Dark red sliding doors carved with bare branches, the third painted with a white-hooded figure and an arrow, seen from a tatami room with a bench in front — A white hood, an arrow, a dark red ground. Benkei, it seems, back in his better-known role.

Two other doors show their subjects from behind. Both are credited to the same artist.

A sliding door painted with a warrior in full armour seen from behind, a quiver of arrows on his back, under a small title label — *Yoshitsune from Behind*.

A pale sliding door painted with a Kannon seen from behind, with long dark hair, a halo and flowing robes, under a small title label — *Kannon from Behind*. Neither turns round.

There is armour in the hall, too.

A suit of black and gold armour with a horned helmet, displayed seated in an alcove, with a gold bamboo-and-gentian crest on the chest — A suit of armour with the bamboo-and-gentian crest, which the temple links to the Minamoto.

A model of a spiny lobster with long antennae and jointed legs, mounted on a wooden base by a lattice window — More armour. The spiny lobster was once called Kamakura-ebi, the Kamakura lobster, because so many were caught off Kamakura.

The tail

Manpukuji’s mountain name, Ryūgozan, means roughly “dragon-guarding mountain”, and it comes with a story. Seen from Enoshima, the hills along this stretch of coast look like a dragon. Its head is at Ryūkōji, the Dragon’s Mouth Temple, nearby. Manpukuji is the tail, and the tail guards the dragon.

Not every ceiling here has a dragon on it.

A coffered ceiling of dark wooden squares, each carved and painted with a different flower or plant — Flowers of the four seasons on a coffered ceiling, as promised by a sign by the door.

But the tail is well supplied, in quite different styles: painted on ceilings, carved into discs and pillars, and hanging outside on ema, the wooden plaques visitors write their prayers on.

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A black dragon with orange eyes painted on a pale ceiling panel among swirling clouds — A black dragon on the ceiling, with orange eyes.

A large circular painting of a dragon’s face with white eyes, in swirling greens and reds — Another, white-eyed, in a great circle of green and red.

A round black panel carved with swirling waves and a red dragon with outstretched claws, propped on a stand — A red dragon carved among black waves.

A carved wooden pillar with a seated figure near the top and a scaly dragon coiling down below — One coiled up a pillar, beneath a seated figure.

A weathered wooden ema plaque painted with a gold dragon among clouds, hanging from a dark cord — One on an ema, weathered to the colour of the wood.

A wooden ema plaque painted with a bald human head on a coiled blue-green snake’s body, inscribed with the name Ugajin and the temple’s name — And one that is not a dragon at all: Ugajin, a deity with a human head and the coiled body of a snake. By this point, it is easy to stop checking.

Round the back

In the grounds stands a stone inscribed as a memorial to Minamoto no Yoshitsune.

A tall, narrow memorial stone carved with red characters beneath a red bamboo-and-gentian crest, among shrubs and hanging branches — The memorial, under the same bamboo-and-gentian crest as the armour.

After Koshigoe, things went badly for him. He ended up in the far north, and in 1189, cornered there, he killed himself. His head was brought back to the shore at Koshigoe, where, according to the shogunate’s own chronicle, it was examined to confirm that it was his.

Beside the temple, a tunnel leads to Kamakura Shichirigahama Cemetery, which Manpukuji manages. Two women in flowing robes are painted at its mouth. Next to them, a small stone marks Suzuri-no-ike, the Inkstone Pond, where Benkei is said to have drawn water to grind his ink.

An arched tunnel entrance under a sign reading Kamakura Shichirigahama Cemetery, with two women in flowing blue and green robes painted on either side and a small stone marker by a railing on the right — The tunnel, with the Inkstone Pond’s marker on the right.

Looking down over a railing into a dark pond, where a turtle sits on a flat stone and goldfish swim beneath a wet rock wall and ferns — The Inkstone Pond. These days it belongs to a turtle and some goldfish, neither of which chirps.

The tunnel is a path to people’s family graves, so it is worth walking quietly. I walked through to the far end. Along the way are a thousand-armed Kannon and a white dragon, its mouth open, stretched along the wall.

Inside a tunnel painted dark blue, a many-armed Kannon surrounded by orange flames on the right-hand wall, with daylight at the far end — A thousand-armed Kannon, with daylight at the far end.

A white dragon with an open red mouth painted along the dark wall of a lit tunnel that stretches towards a bright opening — The white dragon, mouth open, heading the same way as everyone else.

Near the temple office, Benkei is still at his desk, brush to the paper.

More than eight hundred years on, he is still working on the first draft.

Visit this place

Temple

Manpukuji (満福寺)

In Koshigoe, Kamakura, a few minutes from Koshigoe Station on the Enoden. The Koshigoe letter display, the fusuma and the ceilings are in the main hall (admission); the tunnel beside the temple leads to the temple-managed cemetery.

2-4-8 Koshigoe, Kamakura, Kanagawa 248-0033, Japan

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Practical Information

Access: About 3 minutes on foot from Koshigoe Station (Enoden)
Reception: 9:00–17:00
Admission: Adults ¥200; junior high school students ¥100; elementary school children and younger free
Parking: Available for cars and mid-size buses; no space for large buses
Visiting the tunnel: The tunnel beside the temple is the path to Kamakura Shichirigahama Cemetery. Keep quiet and give way to people visiting graves
Phone: 0467-31-3612
Official website: Manpukuji — Visiting and access (Japanese)

Information last checked: October 11, 2026 (access, reception hours, admission, parking and phone).

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