Tsukuda Tendai Jizō-son: The Ginkgo Goes Through the Roof

Place

Tsukuda Tendai Jizō-son (佃天台地蔵尊)

Visited: October 18, 2026
Published: November 6, 2026

A wooden gate with a name board reading Tsukuda Tendai Jizō-son over a narrow tiled passage between buildings, red banners hanging on either side, a handrail on the left and air-conditioning units on the wall to the right — The way in from the street, between two red banners bearing the shrine's name.

In Tsukuda, on Tokyo's waterfront, the way to a small Buddhist shrine is shared with the houses along it. A tiled passage runs back from the street between their walls, under air conditioners and past doors.

A narrow tiled passage running between the open front of a small shrine on the left, with its eaves, hanging lamp, framed history and stone water basin, and the glass lattice door of a house on the right — The shrine on the left, the house opposite on the right, and the passage carrying on between them.

Partway along, Tsukuda Tendai Jizō-son opens off to one side. There is a stone water basin at the front, an offertory box, rows of red lanterns behind glass and, in the middle of it all, the trunk of a ginkgo.

The ceiling has been cut to fit it.

Inside the shrine hall: a thick tree trunk rising from black pebbles in the middle, a stone water basin with ladles on the right, an offertory box and red lanterns on the left, and a dark stone among flowers at the far end — Copies of the shrine's history are set out on a red cloth above the basin. I took one.

The tree

The trunk goes straight up through a round, wood-edged hole in the ceiling, barely wider than itself, and on through the roof into the open air.

A thick ginkgo trunk rising from a bed of black pebbles to the wooden ceiling, which is cut in a curve around it, beside a stone path and walls of red lanterns, with a dark stone among flowers at the far end — Looking down the hall. The dark stone at the far end, between the flowers, is the Jizō.

The ginkgo is said to be about four hundred years old. By one account, there was once no hall here at all, only an enclosure. When the hall came, it seems to have been built on the understanding that the tree was staying.

The ginkgo trunk seen from the other end of the hall, passing through a round opening in the wooden ceiling, with black pebbles at its base, red lanterns in glass cases and a narrow path with a handrail beside it — From the other end. Black pebbles ring the base, as though the tree were outdoors. From the ceiling up, it is.

A stone water basin with two ladles on a wooden rack and a tap, a newspaper clipping with a drawing of a tree on the wall above, and a large shell-like object beside the basin, next to a narrow tiled passage — By the tap hangs a 2002 newspaper article about the tree. Beside the basin sits what looks like half of an enormous shell.

Eighty-four thousand

Past the trunk, at the far end of the hall, is the Jizō the shrine is named for. Jizō is a Buddhist figure who looks after children, among others. He is usually shown as a round-headed monk, and is often carved in stone.

This one is drawn. On the flat face of a rough, natural stone, fine incised lines make the monk: a round head inside a halo, rays fanning out across the stone, a ringed staff in one hand and a wish-granting jewel in the other.

A flat, dark natural stone engraved with the fine outline of a Jizō: a round head inside a rayed halo, a ringed staff and a jewel, with a vertical inscription along the right edge, white flowers beside it and two glasses of water at its foot — The figure up close, with offerings of water at its foot. The water stays in the glasses.

Elsewhere in Tokyo, a Jizō that worshippers strike with small stones has been worn down to something close to an outline. This one began as one. An outline does not have much to spare.

Down the right-hand edge of the stone runs an inscription. The image, it says, was copied by Myōun, the Tendai Jizō monk. The shrine has the same words, Tendai Jizō, in its name, and Tendai is the school of Buddhism Myōun belonged to. The framed history at the front of the shrine gives that as the reason for the name, then, within the same sentence, offers a different one.

The same history takes the image further back. What Myōun copied, it says, was a Jizō drawn in the eighteenth century by an imperial prince living as a monk at Kan'eiji, the great temple in Ueno.

So the story runs: a prince drew it, a monk copied it, and someone cut it into stone.

Myōun became head priest of Jōmyōin, another temple in Ueno. He had begun, it is said, with a vow to put up a thousand stone Jizō. At Jōmyōin, he raised it to eighty-four thousand. In Buddhist usage, eighty-four thousand is a way of saying countless.

The temple has been counting anyway.

By its latest published figures, it is past halfway, with Jizō in its own grounds and across Japan. This stone is believed to be one of them.

The island

Tsukuda was once an island of its own. In the 1640s, fishermen from Tsukuda, a village near Osaka, were granted tidal flats near the mouth of the Sumida River, in Edo, as Tokyo was then called. They built the flats up into an island and named it after home. It was small enough to walk across in a few minutes, with water on every side.

A ferry ran across the river for more than three centuries. It stopped only in 1964, when a bridge took over.

I had walked over from Tsukishima Station. Tsukishima is reclaimed land too, but more than two centuries younger.

A quiet street in Tsukuda with red banners on a building corner on the left, overhead wires, low houses and three high-rise towers against a blue sky — Out on the street: the shrine's banners, a great many wires and, further off, tower blocks.

Requests

The Jizō is asked for a good deal more than help with children: long life, a safe household and wishes in general. In 2021, NHK's Document 72 Hours, a television series that films one spot for seventy-two hours and talks to whoever turns up, chose the spot in front of this Jizō.

The dark stone Jizō between two vases of flowers under a large red lantern, with rows of red lanterns behind the glass along the walls and a wooden sign behind it to the right — The lanterns along the walls are offerings, lettered with the names of the people and businesses that gave them. The big one in the middle carries the shrine's own name.

I put a coin in the box and bowed. Behind the stone stands a small wooden board addressed to everyone. The image on the stone has begun to deteriorate, the board says, and so that it can be kept for a long time, visitors are asked not to touch it.

The Jizō was put here, the story goes, to keep the island's children safe from all that water.

The board also asks you to keep the water off the Jizō.

Visit this place

Location

Tsukuda Tendai Jizō-son (佃天台地蔵尊)

Partway along a narrow passage between houses off a side street in Tsukuda, a few minutes on foot from Tsukishima Station. Red banners mark the entrance on the street.

1-9-6 Tsukuda, Chūō City, Tokyo 104-0051, Japan

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Practical information

Area: Tsukuda, Chūō City, Tokyo
Access: About 3 minutes on foot from Exit 6 of Tsukishima Station (Tokyo Metro Yurakucho Line, Toei Oedo Line). The shrine is partway along a narrow passage off the street, with red banners at the entrance.
Admission: Free
Visitor note: The passage is shared with private homes. Keep your voice down, keep your visit short and do not block the doorways. A sign behind the stone asks visitors not to touch the image or pour water over it.

Information last checked: November 6, 2026 (location, access from Tsukishima Station and admission).

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