Plenty of Nothing

Dragon Ceiling, Butsuden

Source.

Butsuden

The Buddha Hall is the central building of Engaku-ji. This structure only goes back to 1964. It was build, with a lot more cement than the original, to replace the one destroyed by the great earthquake of 1923. Source. Look here to see a set of pictures of Engaku-ji during a snowstorm.

Local Traffic Only

A winding back lane leads into Engaku-ji over the hills from the northwest, but Google Street View got only as far as Yakumo Shrine before that white truck blocked the way.

Service Entrance

Suppliers are requested to make deliveries by the service entrance at the southeast corner of Byakurochi. Source: Google Street View.

Sanmon

The main gate of Engaku-ji, in a print done by Shiro Katamatsu in 1953. The Sanmon is not the physical entrance to the temple, but the symbolic one. The open concept lower level evokes emptiness, formlessness, and inaction, all good things in a Zen Buddhist context. The present structure was built in 1785 and is the only building in the temple to pre-date the 1923 earthquake.

Sōmon

Though by no means the largest gate at Engaku-ji, it's the one you go through to get in. Source.

Byakurochi

Byakurochi (White Egret Pond) lies just outside the main entrance to Engaku-ji. Source. It was severed from the Temple when the Yokosuka Line went through.

Kita-Kamakura Station Diorama

Detail from a diorama of Kita-Kamakura Station in the 1950s. Source.

If you're travelling by rail to Engaku-ji, take the Yokosuka Line and get off at the Kita-Kamakura station. It was opened in 1927 and has a mention in the second edition of Iso Mutsu's Kamakura Fact and Legend. She writes:

The path bearing to the right between the lotos-ponds leads up to the entrance of the temple enclosure; now, alas, sadly desecrated by the march of progress in the shape of the double line of railroad that is no respecter of sanctity, with its unlovely "ways of iron and webs of steel" so ruthlessly cuts through the grove of ancient cryptomeria, even encroaching upon the sacred lotos-ponds themselves. (p. 132)

And Kita-Kamakura Station is not much to look at, but it does have an access tunnel that cuts through the nearby cliffs and which was featured in the 2009 anime Aoi Hana:

For a whole sequence of running for the train at Kita-Kamakura Station reference shots see here.

 

A Guide to Engaku-ji

Engaku-ji as it appears in the Edo-period travel guide Shinpen Kamakurashi.

Engaku-ji is a Buddhist temple complex near Kamakura in the Kantō region. As one of the Five Mountains of Japanese Zen Buddhism, and because it is a storehouse of Japanese national treasures, the site has been a destination for travellers for centuries, and consequently a topic for mapmakers.

Here it is in the mid-14th century:

Source. Here's a more recent version: