Zeniarai Benzaiten Ugafuku Shrine

Zeniarai Benzaiten Ugafuku Jinja
Zeniarai Benzaiten Shrine
Information
Dedicated to	Ugafukujin, or goddess Benzaiten
Founded	Circa 1185
Founder(s)	Minamoto no Yoritomo
Glossary of Shinto

Zeniarai Benzaiten Ugafuku Shrine (銭洗弁財天宇賀福神社, Zeniarai Benzaiten Ugafuku Jinja), popularly known simply as Zeniarai Benten, is a Shinto shrine in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kanagawa prefecture, Japan. In spite of its small size, it is the second most popular spot in Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture after Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū. Zeniarai Benzaiten is popular among tourists because the waters of a spring in its cave are said to be able to multiply the money washed in it. The object of worship is a syncretic kami which fuses a traditional spirit called Ugafukujin (宇賀福神) with the Buddhist goddess of Indian origin Sarasvati, known in Japanese as Benzaiten. The shrine is one of the minority in Japan which still shows the fusion of native religious beliefs and foreign Buddhism (the so-called shinbutsu shūgō) which was normal before the Meiji restoration (end of the 19th century). Zeniarai Benzaiten used to be an external massha of Ōgigayatsu's Yazaka Daijin (八坂大神), but became independent in 1970 under its present name.

According to the sign at the entrance, Zeniarai Benzaiten was founded in 1185 (Bunji 1) after Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147–1199), first of the Kamakura shoguns, on the day of the Snake in the month of the Snake dreamed of kami Ugafukujin. The kami told him that "In a valley to the northwest, there is a miraculous spring that gushes out of the rocks. Go there and worship (Shinto) kami and (Buddhist) hotoke, and peace will come to the country. I am the kami of this land, Ugakufujin." Yoritomo reportedly found the spring and built a shrine for Ugafukujin, a kami whose symbol is a snake with a human head.