Biography | 豊田佐吉 Sakichi Toyoda — The Family Grave on This Hill at Nittai-ji

Sakichi Toyoda died on 30 October 1930 at his house in Kakuozan, Nagoya.

The cause was a cerebral hemorrhage followed by acute pneumonia.

He was sixty-three.

The house itself is a private residence and is not the pin.

Four days later the government conferred the Junior Grade of the Fifth Rank of Honor.

The family placed him here, in the outdoor cemetery of Kakuozan Nittai-ji, 1-1 Ho-o-cho, Chikusa-ku.

The exact interment day is not in the published company record, so the date on this pin is the day of death.

Nittai-ji was founded in 1904 to house relics of the Buddha given to Japan by King Chulalongkorn of Siam.

It belongs to no single sect.

Nineteen schools take turns in the abbacy.

The outdoor cemetery on the east hill covers about 25,000 tsubo.

The Toyoda family plot sits among other Nagoya industrial graves, including the Ito family of Matsuzakaya.

The stone photographed in 2020 is grey granite in a conventional Japanese family style, with matching heights across generations.

His posthumous Buddhist name, recorded on a grave-survey site, is Ken'in-in-den Gyotoku En Daikoji.

A second family temple remains at Myoryu-ji in Kosai, the Nichiren temple of his childhood village.

That is the household's original parish, not the public grave most visitors find.

On 30 October 1935, five years after his death, Risaburo and Kiichiro issued the Toyoda Precepts in his name.

The five articles are work rules, not a last will found in a drawer.

They tell the companies to serve the country through industry, to stay ahead of the times, to be practical, to be kind, and to be thankful.

Stand here and the car company is not yet in the story.

Sakichi never saw a Toyota automobile.

The machines he finished were looms.

The hill remembers the inventor the village sent out, not the brand that later borrowed the name.

Visit quietly.

Do not photograph other mourners.

Keep to posted hours.

Photo: IshizakiA, grave of Sakichi Toyoda at Nittai-ji, 1 October 2020, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons