A stone torii standing among the water lilies, a path said to sleep beneath the surface and a temple set in the heart of a huge character… In Kōka, the gateway to the sacred keeps its feet in the water.
A gate with no path
In Mizuguchi, in Shiga Prefecture, Benten Pond spreads out behind a few houses, right next to Daichi-ji temple. Yet the scene feels much further away: trees crowding around the water, floating leaves and, in the middle, a torii whose pillars disappear into the pond.
Behind it, a small island shelters a shrine to Benzaiten, a deity linked to water. No path reaches it today. So the torii still points the way to somewhere the water has erased.
A heart the size of a landscape
According to Daichi-ji’s tradition, the monk Gyōki came here during the Nara period. Facing farmers struck by drought, he is said to have dug four large irrigation reservoirs, laid out to draw the Japanese character kokoro 心, “heart”. The temple was then founded almost at the centre of this character traced into the landscape, and the ponds are said to have watered the surrounding rice fields for more than a thousand years. It remains a tradition, though: Daichi-ji itself says that no document from the time can confirm it.
An old local history even offers another timeline. In that version, the pond was built between 1655 and 1658 by a monk in charge of restoring the temple, this time to protect it from fire. One pond, two birth certificates: the water has blurred the records.
The path on the bottom
Why is the torii in the water? The easy answer would be that it slowly sank. Nothing proves it, though. Even Shiga’s association for the protection of cultural heritage admits that the origin of this strange layout is unknown. A local tradition says an old path still links the torii to Benzaiten’s island, along the bottom of the pond. In great droughts, the water used for the crops lowered the level. The path would then reappear and villagers walked through the torii to pray to the deity… for the rain to come back. They emptied the pond to ask for water: the logic went round in circles, just like the pond.
The date the torii was built is unknown too. Daichi-ji’s archives do mention a hall dedicated to Benten being built in 1673, without formally tying that date to the submerged gate. The torii keeps its birth certificate under the surface.
Twice the sky
In early summer, the floating leaves close in around the pillars. In autumn, the trees pour their yellow and red into the pond. On a calm day, the reflection stretches the torii down towards the bottom and draws a second gate, upside down in the blue.
You walk along the bank, change angles, but the picture holds: no footbridge, no visible access, only this entrance hanging between the island and you. At Benten Pond, the sacred hasn’t disappeared. It has simply changed element.
More of Shiga close by: Kongōrin-ji and its army of Jizō, and Omihachiman, between rituals and canals. To go further: Daichi-ji temple on Wikipedia ↗, and Benzaiten, the water deity ↗.
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