日蓮上人草庵跡 Site of Nichiren Shōnin’s Ankokuron

Ankokuron-ji is named after the Risshō Ankoku Ron (立正安国論), Nichiren's first major treatise and the source of the first of his three persecutions. Because of it, he was almost executed, pardoned and banished to Sado Island. The essay is said to have actually been written in the small cave visible at the right of the temple's entrance. The stone historical marker which stands in front of the temple's gate commemorates the fact that:

In 1253 Nichiren arrived in Kamakura from Kominato in Awa province (today's Chiba prefecture), settled down here and started chanting the Lotus Sutra. This is the place where later, for three years beginning in 1257, he wrote his essay Risshō Ankokuron in a cave.

Erected in 1939 by the Kamakura Seinendan Young Adult Association.