Most of us have heard the story about Hachiko the dog in Japan, which waited for its master every day at the train station, who had unfortunately passed away. This heart-warming story led to a statue of the dog being built at the station and a Hollywood adaptation featuring Richard Gere. But hundreds of years before Hachiko, was a very loyal cat, which inspired a cat temple in Japan.
The Unrinji Temple in west Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture, is a temple dedicated to cats and also has more than 600 statues. Thirty minutes away from Hagi’s city centre, the name means “clouded forest temple”, but is popularly known as the “Cat Temple”.
In a video posted by Calum McSwiggan on Instagram, a post box is seen at the Unrinji temple, where people leave letters for their deceased pets. McSwiggan’s caption read: “This beautiful shrine is testament to how special Japan really is, visiting a place like this after the loss of any of my pets would have been so incredibly healing….”
Netizens loved and praised this idea in the comments saying, “It’s not sad – it’s beautiful.” Another comment read, “The whole concept is beautiful.”
However, one user clarified that the letters left in this post box are not only for deceased pets, but for deceased loved ones.
The name, “cat temple” originated because of the history of the temple. Around 400 years ago, when a local Samurai was buried in the temple, his cat refused to leave the grave for 49 days, and died from grief over its owner’s death. Legend says, other cats in the surrounding areas and the deceased acts lonesome meowing were heard regularly, until one day, a monk decided to hold a memorial for the deceased cat, instantly stopping the meowing of the neighbourhood cats.
It was centuries later, that the temple gained popularity because of the hundreds of cat statues present, most of which was the work of a local Yamaguchi-based chainsaw artist Takao Hayashi.
According to the website, Hagashi, famous illustrators from Japan’s anime and manga studios have also donated cat-themed artwork.
The entrance of the temple also has a large sign which reads, “A world which throws out its cats is a world that will perish.”
The famous “speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil” monkeys were also replaced with cats at the Unrinji Temple.
Another post box, called the “drifting postbox”, is located at the Jionji temple in Rikuzen-Takata, in the Iwate Prefecture. This post box receives letters with messages for people who lost their lives in the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake.
