'Koishikawa Ji-in: 600 koku (income). The founder was Yurensha Ryōyō Shōnin, early in the Meitoku period (1390-1393). This Shōnin had between his eyebrows the figure of the moon on the third day. Later people called him Mikatsuki Shōnin. Native of Jōshū he was the son of the castle lord of Iwasé in Kujigōri, Shirayoshi Shima no Kami Yoshimitsu. Through prayer at the Iwasé Myōjin his mother became pregnant. He was born Riaku-Ō 4th year 1st month 24th day (11th February 1311). Later his father was killed in battle, and the mother took him to the Jōfukuji, at Sōjiyama. Putting him in charge of Shōjitsu Shōnin his head was shaved. At eight years old he was received at the Mikkyō (Shingon) Hōdon-In Yuzon. Taishū (secret cult) was learned through the teaching of Shingen Hōshi. The Zenshū was taught by the aged Tajima no Temmei and Gwatsuryū. Shintō by Jibu no Tayu Morosuké. In the poetry of Nippon he followed Tona, for ancient and modern example. He wrote ten books of importance. Noted for learning, in Eiwa 4th year (1378) he was transferred to Taitei-san Ōshō-in Nan-ryūbō in Shimotsuké no Kuni. Here he taught the seed of the Law. The son of Chiba Sadatané, Toku Sendai Maru, had a younger brother. It was he who founded the Zōjōji and became Yūyō Shōnin. Ryōyō Mikatsuki Shōnin died in Ōei 27th year 9th month 27th day (3rd November 1420). The San-en-zan Kwō-dō-in Zōjōji had to fief 10540 koku. It is the chief seat of the Jōdō sect in the Kwantō, and its schools swarm with students.'
The large hanging bell of this Zōjōji (tsurigané) has the thickness of a foot. At the time it was the largest of all bells. In the temple record it says that the Shōnin of Shiba San-en-zan, generation following generation, were highly noted for learning. From Ryōyō Shōnin the predecessor the principles must have been inherited. Hence in the foolish talk of people the honoured name of the Shōnin was borrowed and adopted into the affair of Kikujō, as of the noted and erudite priest Mikatsuki Shōnin; no matter of offence."
But no such laboured explanation is required. The sanctity of learning, the inheritance in these bishops and priors of the merits of those who went before, has kept and keeps the appellation in the minds of the generations of the Nipponese. Ryōyō Shōnin, his merits and his nickname, passed in the public mind to his successors. It is the laboured and learned effort of these days which fastens on the prior of Dendzu-in the tales of the long past founder of the temple. It was the learned Oshō of the time of Tsunayoshi Kō, that fifth Shōgun—the Inu Kubo—basely devout and devoted to the Buddha's Law, when to save the life of a dog (inu) the lives of men were sacrificed on the execution ground.[36] The piety and learning of the great priest surely is needed to counterbalance the cruel folly of his master. Both qualities of this later cleric were the needed light in this period so dark for men. In which the wife, more faithful to tradition and the land, drove her dagger into the Shōgun's heart, and kept from his seat and succession the favoured person of his catamite.[37] To be sure the little lady, of kugé not samurai stock, daughter of the Kwampaku (Premier) Takatsukasa Fusasuké, of courage and truly noble stock, then used the dagger on herself; and has kept busy ever since the historians of Nippon, official and other kinds, in explanation of how "it didn't happen." This is but a tale of outside scribes, to explain the taking off between night and morning of a perfectly well man (or divinity)—not sanctified with official and Tokugawal benediction; and no wonder. The tale and the event was not one to brag of. And the lady died too—very shortly.
The eagerness to ascribe a local habitat to the story of the Sarayashiki has led to-day to some curious confusions, dovetailing into each other. To follow Hōgyūsha—in the far off quarter of Yanaka Sansaki, near the Negishi cut of the Northern Railway, is the Nonaka well. Despite its far removal this pool is ascribed to O'Kiku, as the one time well of the Yoshida Goten. As fact—in Shōhō a harlot, by name Kashiwaki, ransomed by a guest here established herself. Death or desertion cut her off from the lover, and she turned nun. The place at that time was mere moorland, and the well near by the hut had the name of the Nonaka no Ido—the well amid the moor. In time the lady and her frailty disappeared, and the kindly villagers buried her close to the hut, scene of her penance.
"Vain the tranquil water mid the moor—mere surface;
Gone, nought remains—of the reflection."
Her well? People call it now the yobi-ido, the calling well, a pool furnished by springs and some thirty feet in diameter. Now only a few chō (hundred yards) to the north of Sansaki, at the Komizo no Hashi of Sakanoshita, is an old mound called the grave of O'Kiku. "Here a small seven faced monument has been erected. But this is not the O'Kiku of the Sarayashiki. This woman named Kiku died of an incurable disease. As her dying wish she asserted that any who suffered pain from incurable disease had but to pray to her to receive relief. With this vow she died." It is the connection between this Kiku and the yobi-ido which has so transferred the well established site of this old story.
Thus comes to a finish these tales of the Edo Banchō, the story of the Sarayashiki with its cruel fate of the unhappy Kikujō, the Lady of the Plates. Long had the distressed figure of the wretched girl ceased its wailing over the never completed tale of the porcelain plates. But the memory of her misfortunes, of the ill-omened well of the Yoshida Goten has remained for centuries in the mind, and thought, and speech of Nippon. Up to the early years of Meiji the Kōjimachi-ido still existed, to be pointed out to the superstitious ever present in this land. The Banchō, for many decades of years, had become the crowded Banchō of the proverb which asserts that one born and living out life therein, yet could not be expected to know the windings and intricacies of its many ways and byways. In time the yashiki of hatamoto disappeared; in recent years to make way for a residential quarter of prosperous tradesmen, minor officials; nay, for bigger fish who swim in the troubled waters of court and politics. The old Kōjimachi village, with its bustling street and many shops, remains. True the old well has gone the way of the ruined yashiki of Aoyama Shūzen, of the waste land (皿土) on which at one time both stood. But to this very day the tradition remains firm and clear. So much so that those who leave their homes, to fail of reappearance ever after, are spoken of as having met the fate of the unhappy victims of the Kōjimachi-ido. To quote again the very ancient poem in assertion of the verity of its evil influence:
"Yoshida: to passers by the token;
Long sleeves wave invitation."
Yokohama—21st September to
14th November, 1916.