Zeniarai Benzaiten Ugafuku Shrine

Zeniarai Benzaiten Ugafuku Shrine is one of Kamakura's most distinctive and atmospheric places of worship, tucked into a hollow among the hills west of the town centre. Its name literally means money-washing Benzaiten, and it draws a steady stream of visitors who come to perform a very particular ritual: washing their coins and banknotes in the water of a sacred spring in the belief that money cleansed here will multiply and return to them manyfold.

The approach alone makes the shrine memorable. Rather than a conventional gate, you enter through a torii and then a tunnel bored directly through the rock of the hillside, emerging into a secluded basin ringed by cliffs and lined with rows of red torii and fluttering banners. The enclosed, almost hidden setting gives the shrine a secretive, sanctuary-like feel quite unlike the grand open avenues of Tsurugaoka Hachimangu. According to legend the shrine was founded in 1185 by Minamoto no Yoritomo after the god Ugafukujin appeared to him in a dream on a day of the Snake, urging him to find this spring and worship there to bring peace to the land.

At the heart of the site, a spring flows from a cave, the Okuno-in, where Benzaiten, goddess of water, music and fortune, is enshrined. Visitors buy a small candle and a stick of incense, light them at the entrance, and take a bamboo basket (zaru) provided at the cave, place their money inside, and ladle the cool spring water over it. Coins are easy; many people also wash folded banknotes, then dry them carefully afterwards. Tradition holds that the washed money should be spent, not hoarded, so that the blessing circulates, and the luckiest days to perform the ritual are those marked by the Snake in the traditional zodiac calendar, when the shrine grows especially busy.

Beyond the money-washing cave, the grounds hold several smaller shrines, including one to the water god enshrined in a second spring, and the whole basin has a cool, green, slightly mysterious atmosphere heightened by the drifting incense smoke and the sound of trickling water. It is a place people visit hopefully and a little playfully, and the sight of visitors solemnly rinsing their wallets is part of its charm.

The shrine is free to enter, with only a small donation for candles and incense, and it is reached by a walk of about 25 minutes west and uphill from Kamakura Station through quiet residential lanes; the final stretch climbs steeply, so it rates as a moderate outing and comfortable shoes help. The station is on the JR Yokosuka Line, fully covered by the Japan Rail Pass. Allow around 40 minutes at the shrine. Because it sits in the hills, Zeniarai Benzaiten combines well with the nearby Sasuke Inari Shrine and can be worked into a walk toward the Daibutsu hiking trail, offering a rewarding detour away from Kamakura's busiest sights.