Shuzen-ji Temple and Shitsukiden (Minamoto Memorial Site)

According to the temple's tradition, the future Kōbō Daishi (Kūkai) came to this site in Enryaku 10 (791) at the age of 18 to train, and in Daidō 2 (807) formally established the temple compound (Shuzenji Temple official). For the first roughly 470 years of its existence, the temple belonged to the Shingon school and was known as Katuya-zan-ji; during the Kenchō era (1249–1255) the Chinese Rinzai monk Lanxi Daolong (Rankei Dōryū) took up residence and converted the temple to the Rinzai school; in Chōkyō 3 (1489) Hōjō Sōun invited the Sōtō monk Ryūkei Hanshō and established the Sōtō affiliation that continues to the present (Wikipedia 'Shuzenji'). Minamoto no Noriyori (Yoritomo's half-brother) was confined at the temple's sub-temple Shinkōin (now Hie Shrine) in Kenkyū 4 (1193) on suspicion of treachery and later killed — though his survival is also argued, since his descendants continued as Gokenin (retainer vassals). Minamoto no Yoriie, the second shogun of the Kamakura shogunate, was stripped of the shogunate by the Hōjō clan and confined to Shuzenji, where he was assassinated by Hōjō agents while bathing on the 18th day of the seventh month of Genkū 1 (14 August 1204) (Shuzenji Temple official; Wikipedia 'Shuzenji'). The Shigetsuden (指月殿) was built by Yoriie's mother, Hōjō Masako, at the seventh memorial anniversary of his death, along with the donation of the Song-edition 'Fangguang Bore Jing' (Hōkō Hannya-kyō, a complete Buddhist canon in thousands of volumes) and an embroidered Śākyamuni triad (Izu City tourism information).

Shuzenji is a composite sacred site simultaneously carrying historical weight as the scene of Kamakura shogunate power struggles and the double religious authority of its Kōbō Daishi founding legend and Sōtō Zen affiliation. Yoriie's confinement and assassination encapsulates the appropriation of shogunal power by the Hōjō clan, while Masako's acts of memorial patronage (the Shigetsuden, the canon donation) can be read as the religious practice of atonement and spirit-appeasement by those who wielded the power responsible for his death. In 1908, the playwright Kidō Okamoto visited the temple, viewed the carved wooden mask ('Yoriie's Mask,' said to have been carved by Yoriie himself during his confinement), and used it as the inspiration for his play 'Shuzenji Monogatari' (1911), which remains a staple of the kabuki and Shinkokugeki repertoire. The nationally designated Important Cultural Property wooden Dainichi Nyorai seated figure (1210 CE, by the sculptor Jikkei), found on internal examination to contain three locks of women's hair wrapped in brocade, lends a further layer of mystery to the site's devotional history.

Izu City's tourism information page (Izu City, Shigetsuden) presents the Shigetsuden as 'Izu's oldest wooden structure,' highlighting the unusual Zen-style Śākyamuni figure holding a lotus in its right hand and the location of Yoriie's grave to its left. The temple holds annual observances on April 21 (Kōbō Memorial) and August 21 (Annual Festival), with a monthly market on the 21st of each month (except April and August) (Wikipedia 'Shuzenji'). Adjacent to the precinct, the Dokko-no-Yu hot spring — said to have been caused to gush by Kūkai striking a rock with his ritual implement — merges the site's sacred and onsen-resort dimensions.

November (autumn colour — the precincts' katsura and maple trees) and around April 21 (Kōbō Memorial) are ideal. Early morning visits offer quiet and undisturbed access to the precinct.

The composition of the main hall's facade with the Dokko-no-Yu is the defining image of the site. The Shigetsuden is located across the Katsuragawa River, at the foot of Shikayama (Tōno-mine); the Kokei Bridge makes an elegant foreground. The grave of Yoriie and the Shigetsuden hall are best photographed in silence as a paired composition.

Shuzenji Onsen township is a popular tourist destination and can be crowded on weekends and in the autumn-colour season. The Shigetsuden is a standalone hall; visitors should conduct themselves with appropriate quiet. Yoriie's grave is immediately to the left of the Shigetsuden hall — restrained, respectful behaviour is appropriate.