Place · island shrine · Japan
Enoshima
Also known as Enoshima — Benzaiten shrine
An island shrine off the Shonan coast dedicated to Benzaiten, who is Sarasvatī — arrived through Chinese Buddhist translation, kept as a goddess of water, music and eloquence, and still depicted holding a stringed instrument, the biwa in place of the vīṇā. Enoshima is one of the three great Benzaiten sites of Japan and draws musicians and students for exactly the reasons her Indian original does. She is also counted among the Seven Lucky Gods, three of whom are Indian in origin.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 35.299, 139.480
Worth knowing
Sarasvatī crossed into Japan without a Hindu mission: she arrived in the Chinese translation of the Golden Light Sutra and became Benzaiten, keeping the water, the music and the stringed instrument. She is not alone. Daikokuten is Mahākāla, Bishamonten is Vaiśravaṇa, Kangiten is Gaṇeśa, Emma is Yama, and Bonten and Taishakuten are Brahmā and Indra — a whole row of Indian gods standing in Japanese temples under Japanese names.
Connections (4)
- TransmissionMount Kōya
Sarasvati reached Japan through the Chinese translation of the Golden Light Sutra and became Benzaiten, goddess of music, water, eloquence and eventually money, with her shrines on islands and beside ponds because the Indian goddess was originally a river. She holds a biwa where Sarasvati holds a vina. Almost nothing of the Vedic Sarasvati survives in practice anywhere — the river itself is gone — and this is the fullest living continuation of her.
- In the same set asHōgon-ji, Chikubushima
Two of the three great Benzaiten of Japan, with Itsukushima the third. Both are islands, which is the part of Sarasvatī that survived the journey: she was a river in India, and in Japan she is reached across water everywhere she is important. Chikubushima sits in Lake Biwa and Enoshima off the Shonan coast, and the pilgrimage that joins the three is still walked.
- In the same set asItsukushima Shrine, Miyajima
The third and first of the three great Benzaiten. Itsukushima put its shrine out over the tide and Enoshima put its cave at the sea’s edge, and both were sacred islands before Benzaiten reached them — which is how she was received: an Indian water goddess arriving at places Japan already treated as holy because of the water.
- TransmissionSaraswati
Sarasvatī reached Japan as Benzaiten through the Chinese translation of the Golden Light Sutra, not through any Hindu mission, and she kept what the Rigveda gave her: water, speech, music and a stringed instrument. The Indian river is a dry bed argued over by archaeologists; the goddess of it has three island shrines and a national circuit in a country she never travelled to as anything but a translated text.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Enoshima Shrine” and “Benzaiten”. Catherine Ludvik, Sarasvatī, Riverine Goddess of Knowledge (2007); Bernard Faure, Gods of Medieval Japan (2015–16).
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