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 the Eigenji-Takano neighborhood of the city of Higashiōmi,

Shiga Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan in the Kansai region of Honshu. Shiga Prefecture has a population of 1,398,972 as of 1 February 2025 and has a geographic area of . Shiga Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the north, Gifu Prefecture to th ...

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 ...

. It is the head temple of one of the 14 autonomous branches of the

Rinzai The Rinzai school (, zh, t=臨濟宗, s=临济宗, p=Línjì zōng), named after Linji Yixuan (Romaji: Rinzai Gigen, died 866 CE) is one of three sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism, along with Sōtō and Ōbaku. The Chinese Linji school of ...

school of

Japanese Zen :''See also Zen for an overview of Zen, Chan Buddhism for the Chinese origins, and Sōtō, Rinzai school, Rinzai and Ōbaku for the three main schools of Zen in Japan'' Japanese Zen refers to the Japanese forms of Zen, Zen Buddhism, an orig ...

History

Eigen-ji was founded in 1361 by the famous

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and roshi Jakushitsu Genkō under the sponsorship of the ''

shugo , commonly translated as ' ilitarygovernor', 'protector', or 'constable', was a title given to certain officials in feudal Japan. They were each appointed by the shogun to oversee one or more of the provinces of Japan. The position gave way to th ...

'' of

Ōmi Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan, which today comprises Shiga Prefecture. It was one of the provinces that made up the Tōsandō Circuit (subnational entity), circuit. Its nickname is . Under the ''Engishiki'' classification system, ...

, Sasaki Ujinori. At its head, the temple had over 2000 priests and 56 chapels on the mountainside. During the Onin War, many priests from the Kyoto Gozan temple sought sanctuary at Eigen-ji; however, the temple burned down in 1492 and again in 1563 and fell into decline afterwards. According to a tradition in Inabe city in

Mie Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Mie Prefecture has a population of 1,781,948 () and has a geographic area of . Mie Prefecture is bordered by Gifu Prefecture to the north, Shiga Prefecture an ...

, a priest from Eigen-ji escaped over the Suzuka Mountains into

Ise Province was a province of Japan in the area of Japan that is today includes most of modern Mie Prefecture. Ise bordered on Iga, Kii, Mino, Ōmi, Owari, Shima, and Yamato Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was . History The name of Ise appears ...

bearing the temple's treasures when the temple was destroyed by Takigawa Kazumasa on orders of

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. He is sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demo ...

in 1570; however, there are no records of such an event at Eigen-ji itself. During the

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 ...

, the temple was revived by an abbot named Isshi Bunshu from Myōshin-ji in Kyoto, under the sponsorship of

Emperor Go-Mizunoo , posthumously honored as , was the 108th Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional List of Emperors of Japan, order of succession. Go-Mizunoo's reign spanned the years from 1611 through 1629, and he was the first emperor to reign entirely d ...

, his consort Tofukumon-in and Hikone Domain. IN 1873, he joined the Tofuku-ji subject of the Rinzai school, but became an independent branch in 1880.

Present day

Today it is the head temple of the Eigen-ji branch of Rinzai Zen and governs more than 120 temples and one monastery.Dumoulin, 205Head Temples The temple is a noted spot for

hanami is the Japanese traditional custom of enjoying the transient beauty of flowers; in this case almost always mean those of the or, less frequently, trees. From the end of March to early May, cherry trees bloom all over Japan, and around the s ...

in spring, with a variant of the

sakura The cherry blossom, or sakura, is the flower of trees in ''Prunus'' subgenus '' Cerasus''. ''Sakura'' usually refers to flowers of ornamental cherry trees, such as cultivars of ''Prunus serrulata'', not trees grown for their fruit (although ...

known as the "Eigenji-zakura", and for viewing of maple leaves in the autumn.

Gallery

Eigen-ji (Rinzai temple) - front area landscaping.jpg Eigen-ji (Rinzai temple) - front area.jpg Eigen-ji (Rinzai temple) landscape.jpg Eigen-ji (Rinzai temple) landscape1.jpg Eigen-ji (Rinzai temple) landscape2.jpg Eigenji temple, 永源寺 - panoramio.jpg, Sanmon

References

External links

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Shiga-Biwako Tourist Information

Notes

{{Authority control Buddhist temples in Shiga Prefecture Eigen-ji temples Higashiōmi