Dojoji

Step through the gate at Dojoji and the first thing you notice isn't the architecture — it's the quiet.

Dojoji is the oldest temple in Wakayama, founded in 701, and it is famous for a story. A woman called Kiyohime fell for a young monk, Anchin, who fled her; she pursued him, turned into a serpent, found him hiding under the temple bell, and burned him alive inside it. The tale became a noh play, a kabuki play, a bunraku and a great deal of painting, and it is one of the small number of narratives every Japanese person knows.

The temple tells it in person. In the Engi-do, a priest or member of staff unrolls a picture scroll and narrates the whole thing over about forty minutes — the etoki seppo, picture-explaining sermon — every day, without reservation, in Japanese. It is a live performance of a medieval storytelling form that survives in very few places. Entry to the grounds is free; the treasure hall and the storytelling are charged.