is a

Buddhist temple A Buddhist temple or Buddhist monastery is the place of worship for Buddhism, Buddhists, the followers of Buddhism. They include the structures called vihara, chaitya, stupa, wat, khurul and pagoda in different regions and languages. Temples in B ...

in Takaoka,

Toyama Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Toyama Prefecture has a population of 993,848 (1 January 2025) and has a geographic area of 4,247.61 km2 (1,640.01 sq mi). Toyama Prefecture borders Ishikawa Prefecture to the ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. The temple belongs to the

Sōtō Sōtō Zen or is the largest of the three traditional sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism (the others being Rinzai school, Rinzai and Ōbaku). It is the Japanese line of the Chinese Caodong school, Cáodòng school, which was founded during the ...

-school of Japanese

Zen Zen (; from Chinese: ''Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka phil ...

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

History

The second ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' of

Kaga Domain The , also known as the , was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1583 to 1871.Maeda Toshinaga (1562–1614) after retiring to Takaoka, had a temple, built, which was completed in 1613. After Toshinaga's death in 1614, the temple was renamed to Zuiryū-ji after his posthumous name, . His younger brother,

Maeda Toshitsune was an early-Edo period Japanese samurai, and the 2nd ''daimyō'' of Kaga Domain in the Hokuriku region of Japan, and the 3rd hereditary chieftain of the Maeda clan. Toshitsune was a brother of Maeda Toshinaga and a son of Maeda Toshiie. He ...

, and third ''daimyō'' of Kaga, in commemoration of Toshinaga, had the temple expanded starting in 1645. The extensions were supervised by who completed the works for the 50th anniversary in 1663. The temple complex at the time covered an area of and — similar to a castle — was surrounded by two moats.

Temple complex

The temple compound or '' garan'' in the zen style is modeled after the Zen temple Jingshanshou (径山寿寺) in

Hangzhou Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...

.Suzuki, Toshihiko (Hrsg.): “Zuiryu-ji’’. In: Nihon daihyakka zensho (Denshibukku-han)”, Shogakukan, 1996. *The (A) outside of the actual complex has a ''kirizuma'' style, gabled roof with . It is a 3

ken Ken or KEN may refer to: Entertainment * ''Ken'' (album), a 2017 album by Canadian indie rock band Destroyer * ''Ken'' (film), a 1965 Japanese film * ''Ken'' (magazine), a large-format political magazine * Ken Masters, a main character in th ...

wide ''yakuimon''. Decorated with the emblem (

mon Mon, MON or Mon. may refer to: Places * Mon State, a subdivision of Myanmar * Mon, India, a town in Nagaland * Mon district, Nagaland * Mon, Raebareli, a village in Uttar Pradesh, India * Mon, Switzerland, a village in the Canton of Grisons * A ...

) of the

Maeda clan The was a Japanese samurai clan who occupied most of the Hokuriku region of central Honshū from the end of the Sengoku period through the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The Maeda claimed descent from the Sugawara clan through Sugawara no Kiyotom ...

, plum blossom and lions on either end, it is a good example of Momoyama and early

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

ornamentation.Toyama kindai rekishi kenkyukai rekishi sampo bukai (Hrsg.): ''Toyama-ken no rekishi sampo . '' Yamakawa Shuppan, 2008. . * Built in 1645, the (T) was lost in fire in 1746. It was rebuilt from 1814 to 1818 by Yamagami Zen’emon Yoshihiro. The gate is a two-storied 3

wide main gate to the temple and has an ''

irimoya The East Asian hip-and-gable roof (''Xiēshān'' (歇山) in Chinese, ''Paljakjibung'' (팔작지붕) in Korean and ''Irimoya'' (入母屋) in Japanese) also known as 'resting hill roof', consists of a hip roof that slopes down on all four side ...

'' style roof with . On either side it is connected to a 3 ken wide, 1 ken deep single-storied corridor (''

kairō Two examples of ''kairō'' , , is the Japanese version of a cloister, a covered corridor originally built around the most sacred area of a Buddhist temples in Japan, Buddhist temple, a zone which contained the ''Main Hall (Japanese Buddhism), ...

'') with kirizuma''-style roof, which connects most of the structures in the complex. * The main hall or (B) is located in the centre of the temple compound. Made of elm wood, it measures 3×3 ken or . The roof is in ''irimoya''-style with a pent roof enclosure, lead plate roofing. Inside it is a mixture of Japanese and Indian style with good carvings; a masterpiece of Yamagami. * The (G) is the main assembly and lecture hall of the complex and dates to the year 1655. It is single-storied and measures 11×9 ken. The roof is in ''irimoya''-style with a 2×1 step canopy and ''

karahafu is a type of curved gable found in Japanese architecture. It is used on Japanese castles, Buddhist temples, and Shinto shrines. Roofing materials such as tile and bark may be used as coverings. The face beneath the gable may be flush with the w ...

'' gable. It is roofed with copper plates. The ceiling of the central room has been decorated in floral motif by

Kanō Yasunobu Kanō Yasunobu (, 10 January 1614 – 1 October 1685) was a Japanese painter of the Kanō school of painting during the Edo period. He was the third son of Kanō Takanobu, who had been head of the school, and succeeded Kanō Sadanobu as h ...

. At the end of the room in the central alcove there is a stele commemorating Maeda Toshinaga. The alcove to the right has been used for receptions by the Maeda, the one to the left was reserved for the priests and higher ranking cohorts of the Maeda. *Other buildings in the complex that are connected by the corridor are the (R), the (Z), the (H). Close to the entrance on the eastern side of the complex, the following buildings have been renovated recently: the (Y) and the (N).At a zen temple, the toilet is variously paraphrased as or or . In 1997 the High gate, the Buddha-Hall, and the Dharma-Hall were designated as

National Treasure A national treasure is a structure, artifact, object or cultural work that is officially or popularly recognized as having particular value to the nation, or representing the ideals of the nation. The term has also been applied to individuals or ...

. The ''sōmon'', the meditation hall, the large tea house and the corridors have been designated as Important Cultural Property. The temple owns a painting of Daruma by Sesshū, a

Kannon Guanyin () is a common Chinese name of the bodhisattva associated with Karuṇā, compassion known as Avalokiteśvara (). Guanyin is short for Guanshiyin, which means " he One WhoPerceives the Sounds of the World". Originally regarded as m ...

Kanō Tan'yū was a Japanese painter of the Kanō school. One of the foremost Kanō painters of the Tokugawa period, many of the best known Kanō works today are by Tan'yū. Biography His original given name was Morinobu; he was the eldest son of K ...

and other paintings.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* Mainichi Shimbu (Hrsg.): Juyo bunkazai 12. Tempelarchitektur. Mainichi Shimbun-sha, 1973.

External links