Fertility temple rises to the task to help couples sow the seed
Quote:
Josei Seven(8/24-31)
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Joganji, a Buddhist Temple in the sleepy backwoods of Katsuragi, Nara Prefecture, has gained a nationwide reputation for helping childless couples bear the fruit of their loins, according to Josei Seven (8/24-31).
Joganji has been around for over 1,000 years, and its reputation for fertilizing fertility extends back almost as long.
"When childless Emperor Montoku (851-859) visited the temple and prayed, he was blessed with an heir," Josei Seven quotes the temple's website as saying.
About 1,200 years later, Joganji is still supposed to be providing children to couples and people travel from across Japan to pray for pregnancies.
The worshipping couple appears before the priest, who chants a series of mantras over them. The whole process is over in about 10 minutes.
Among the thanks directed toward the temple are couples who've been trying for 15 years to have children and only succeeding after visiting Joganji, women delighted that they've also become mothers and others astounded to have fallen pregnant so soon after praying there.
Outside the front gate of the temple are a long line of statutes made out in the shape of adoring mothers and their children.
Joganji accepts applications for prayers from anywhere, asking the couples to send in an application by letter, fax or through an e-mail form on the temple website. Couples must list the date of their marriage on their applications. Priests will then pray for the couple to get a baby and pocket a payment of 20,000 yen for their troubles.
Chief Priest Ryokei Washio -- the 23rd chief priest of the temple -- insists praying at the site provides fertility and brandishes a thick wad of "thank you" letters from happy couples as proof.
"There are many people who fall pregnant not long after coming here to pray. I guess about 1,000 couples a year," the chief priest tells Josei Seven, flashing the letters again. "These are all letters from couples thanking us for giving them babies." (By Ryann Connell)
August 16, 2006
Mainichi Daily Jp