茂林寺 · Shrine or temple · Tatebayashi, Gunma
Morinji
The temple of the tea kettle that was a tanuki, with a row of tanuki statues up the approach and the kettle itself on show.
Quick Facts
- Type
- Shrine or temple
- Prefecture
- Gunma · Tatebayashi
- Nearest station
- Morinjimae Station (Tōbu Isesaki Line)
- From the station
- About seven minutes on foot
- English signage
- none
- Opening hours and admission
- See the official site (external link) · information checked on 2026-11-03
Hours, admission and closing days change, and this site does not list them. The link goes to the place's own page, with the date we last checked it.
What is there
Morinji is a Zen temple founded in 1426 on the plain north of the Tone river. A thatched gate opens onto an approach lined with tanuki statues, each in a straw hat with a sake flask, and the main hall, also thatched, keeps the tea kettle that gave the temple its fame. The kettle is shown in a room beside the hall with the scrolls and picture books that tell its story, and the temple shop sells the tanuki in every size. The town around it has taken the tanuki as its emblem.Why here
The temple’s own account says that in 1570, when a thousand priests gathered here, the monk Shukaku brought out a kettle that never ran dry however much tea was drawn from it, and that Shukaku, who had served the temple for more than a century, was in the end revealed as an old tanuki. The children’s story of the kettle that sprouts a head and legs on the fire and runs about the room is the later shape of this tale, and the temple shows both.Yokai you will meet
- Bake-danuki 化け狸 — The kettle of the 1570 tale and the tanuki statues up the approach.
Getting there
Morinjimae Station (Tōbu Isesaki Line). About seven minutes on foot.
Sources and further reading
- Primary text History of Morinji (external link) Sōtō Zen Morinji Temple The temple's history connecting founder Dairin Shōtsū, Shukaku and Morinji's establishment in Tatebayashi.
- Primary text Bunbuku Chagama and Morinji (external link) Sōtō Zen Morinji Temple Morinji's official account of Shukaku, the inexhaustible kettle used in 1570, his revealed mujina or tanuki form, his 1587 departure and the later fairy tale.
- Primary text Visiting Morinji (external link) Morinji The temple's page on visiting the kettle room; hours and admission are kept there, not here.
- Database Morinji (茂林寺) (external link) Wikipedia (Japanese) Foundation in 1426, the thatched gate and hall, and the tanuki statues of the approach.
Other places in Gunma
- Kashōzan Mirokuji 迦葉山弥勒寺 Shrine or temple