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According to legend, the Shrine dates from the era of Yoritomo Minamoto {yoh-re-toh-moh me-nah-moh-toh} (1147-1199), the founder of the Kamakura Shogunate. One night after a series of battles, an old man appeared in his dream and said "I am the god of Ugajin {woo-gah-gin}. There is a spring in the gorge located in the northwest direction of Kamakura. Go and worship Ugajin with the spring water. People may start to have faith and peace and wealth will be restored.
Yoritomo interpreted the dream as a divine revelation and immediately made his men find the spring and they located it at the site where the present-day Shrine stands. He gave orders to dig a cave and enshrine the god of Ugajin. Uga means food and jin is god, and therefore, Ugajin is the god of food or the god of grain to be exact. Praying to the god of Ugajin for a bumper crop, farmers near here washed rice seeds with this spring water. Later, Ugajin began to be worshiped as the God of Wealth and was assimilated with Benzaiten {ben-zye-ten} (Sarasvati in Sanskrit), the Goddess of Fortune. Sarasvati is a divinized river in Brahmanism and revered as the God of Water. The Shrine, therefore, demonstrates a syncretism in Japanese religions combining a Shinto god with a Buddhism deity through the common element of water. The torii gates and the incense burner indicate a reconciliation of Shinto and Buddhist elements.
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Torii gates at Zeniarai Benten Shrine |
