The ''Enoshima Engi'' (江嶋縁起) is a history of the temples and shrines on

Enoshima is a small offshore island, about in circumference, at the mouth of the Katase River which flows into the Sagami Bay of Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Administratively, Enoshima is part of the mainland city of Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Fujisawa, and is ...

Island in

Sagami Bay lies south of Kanagawa Prefecture in Honshu, central Japan, contained within the scope of the Miura Peninsula, in Kanagawa, to the east, the Izu Peninsula, in Shizuoka Prefecture, to the west, and the Shōnan coastline to the north, while the i ...

. It was written in Chinese, the scholarly language of the time, by the Japanese Buddhist monk Kōkei in 1047 AD. The ''Enoshima Engi'' consists of two separate parts. The first tells the story of the tribulations of prehistoric villagers who lived in the vicinity of

. The villagers were plagued for a period of a thousand-some years by a destructive, five-headed dragon (Gozuryu: 五頭竜) that had its lair in a nearby lake. Aware of their suffering, on May 31, 552 AD, the Goddess

Benzaiten is an East Asian Buddhism, East Asian Buddhist Dharmapala, goddess who originated from the Hindu Saraswati, the patroness of speech, the arts, and learning. Worship of Benzaiten arrived in Japan during the sixth through eighth centuries, mai ...

caused the island of

to arise from the bottom of the bay to serve as her abode. She then descended onto the island amidst a series of spectacular terrestrial and aerial phenomena. The dragon fell in love with the beautiful goddess and asked her to be his consort. Benzaiten, who was widely known for her persuasive eloquence, rejected the dragon's proposal and made it understand that it had been doing wrong by plaguing the villagers. Ashamed, the dragon promised to cease its wrongdoing. It then faced south (devotedly facing the island where Benzaiten lived) and changed into a hill. To this day, the hill is known as Dragon's-Mouth Hill (Japanese: tatsu-no-kuchi yama 龍の口山). Although this story seems fantastic on the surface, it very likely contains many factual elements. The dragon, for example, is probably a metaphor for the water of a violent local river that is still notorious for its floods. Its five heads were probably four of the river's tributaries plus the mouth of the river. The descent of the goddess may have been inspired by aerial phenomena such as the passage of a large meteor. The second part of the ''Enoshima Engi'' relates visits to

by eminent monks. Among the visitors was Jikaku Daishi (慈覺大師), the posthumous name of

Ennin , better known in Japan by his posthumous name, Jikaku Daishi (), was a priest of the Tendai school of Buddhism in Japan, and its third . Ennin was instrumental in expanding the Tendai Order's influence, and bringing back crucial training and ...

(圓仁, 792-862 AD), the third chief priest of

Enryaku-ji is a Tendai monastery located on Mount Hiei in Ōtsu, overlooking Kyoto. It was first founded in 788 during the early Heian period (794–1185) by Saichō (767–822), also known as Dengyō Daishi, who introduced the Tendai sect of Mahayana ...

(延暦寺), the center of

Buddhism in Japan Buddhism was first established in Japan in the 6th century CE. Most of the Japanese Buddhists belong to new schools of Buddhism which were established in the Kamakura period (1185－1333). During the Edo period (1603–1868), Buddhism was cont ...

References

* ''A Study of the Enoshima Engi'' (https://sites.google.com/site/bemsha10/intro {{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161219073950/https://sites.google.com/site/bemsha10/intro , date=2016-12-19 ) History of religion in Japan 1040s books Chinese-language works