Ekoin Temple
📍 Tokyo, Ryogoku
Founded after a fire that killed 100,000 people in 1657, this Ryogoku temple hosted sumo tournaments for 76 straight years and holds the grave of Nezumi Kozo, an Edo-era thief students still visit for exam luck.
Tucked a few minutes from the sumo stadium, Ekoin is easy to walk past — and packed with more layered history than almost anywhere else in Ryogoku.
Why It’s Interesting
The temple was founded in 1657 in the aftermath of the Great Fire of Meireki, which destroyed 60-70% of Edo and killed roughly 100,000 people, most without surviving family to bury them. A century later, in 1768, the temple grounds became a home for kanjin-zumo — charity sumo tournaments licensed by the shogunate — and by 1833 it was hosting every official sumo tournament in the country, a run that lasted 76 years until the sport moved next door into the first Ryogoku Kokugikan. The 1937 Chikara-zuka monument still draws young sumo apprentices praying for strength. And in one of Tokyo’s odder pilgrimage spots, the grave of Nezumi Kozo — a chivalrous Edo-period thief who stole from the wealthy — has been worn into a nub by generations of students chipping off stone shavings for exam-luck charms.
Best Time to Visit
Any time — it’s outdoors, free, and rarely crowded, a quiet counterpoint to the sumo stadium’s bustle nearby.
Getting There
About five minutes on foot from Ryogoku Station, right alongside the cluster of sumo-related sights in the neighborhood.
🐿️ Cinnamon was here
Field report
Sumo's ghosts led me to Ekoin. The temple was founded after the great fire of 1657 killed a hundred thousand people — a temple for everyone with no one to mourn them, which is the kindest founding purpose I've ever written down. For 76 years its yard hosted the sumo tournaments that became the professional sport up the road.
I paid my respects properly, and then I visited the grave of Nezumi Kozo, the Edo thief nicknamed 'Rat Kid' who stole from samurai mansions. Gamblers still shave chips off his tombstone for luck. As a rodent-adjacent professional I left him an acorn instead. Take, don't always shave.
Quiet, ten minutes from the sumo arena, and holding more Tokyo history per square metre than places ten times its size.
— Cinnamon 🐿️
📸 Cinnamon's camera roll
Snapshots from our very good boy on the road.
Where it is
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Nearby discoveries
Kakimori
Kuramae Shrine
Sumida Hokusai Museum
Yoshitoku Doll Shop
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