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 ...

located in the Shimogawara neighborhood of Higashiyama-ku,

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

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 belongs to the Kenninji branch of the

Rinzai school 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, Linji s ...

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 ...

. Its '' sangō'' prefix is , and its Main image is a statue

Shaka Nyorai Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was ...

. Its precincts were designated a National Historic Site in 1966. The gardens of Kōdai-ji were designed by

Kobori Enshū was a Japanese aristocrat, garden designer, painter, poet, and tea master during the reign of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Biography His personal name was Masakazu (政一). In 1604, he received as inheritance a 12,000-''koku'' fief in Ōmi Province at K ...

and are a nationally designated

Place of Scenic Beauty is a collective term used by the Japanese government's Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties to denote Cultural Properties of JapanIn this article, capitals indicate an official designation as opposed to a simple definition, e.g "Cultural ...

History

After

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...

's death, his wife, Kita no Mandokoro, became a nun and was given the

dharma name A Dharma name is a new name acquired during both lay and monastic Buddhist initiation rituals in Mahayana Buddhism and Pabbajjā, monastic ordination in Theravada Buddhism (where it is more proper to call it Dhamma or Sangha name). The name is ...

Kōdai-in (died October 17, 1624), formerly known as , , , was an aristocrat and Buddhist nun, founder of the temple Kōdai-ji in Kyoto, Japan. She was formerly the principal samurai wife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi under the name of . Nussbaum, Louis-Frédé ...

" by

Emperor Go-Yōzei was the 107th Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Go-Yōzei's reign spanned the years 1586 through to his abdication in 1611, corresponding to the transition between the Azuchi–Momoyama period and the Edo period ...

in 1603. She then made a vow to build a temple to commemorate Hideyoshi's soul, and

Tokugawa Ieyasu Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Gr ...

supported the construction. Kōdai-ji was built on the grounds of once belonging to a temple called Unkō-ji, which had burned down during the

Ōnin War The , also known as the Upheaval of Ōnin and Ōnin-Bunmei war, was a civil war that lasted from 1467 to 1477, during the Muromachi period in Japan. ''Ōnin'' refers to the Japanese era name, Japanese era during which the war started; the war ende ...

. The temple was begun by relocating structures from other temples in Kyoto. The Kotoku-ji, which contained the grave of Hideyoshi's mother

Ōmandokoro Ōmandokoro (大政所, 1516 – 29 August 1592) or Ōmandokoro Naka was the mother of the Japanese ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi. She was also the mother of Asahi no kata, Tomo and Toyotomi Hidenaga. Biography Ōmandokoro is said to have been ...

was located was relocated to the new site. Kōdai-in built a residence and one for her nephew

Kinoshita Toshifusa Kinoshita (written: 木下 or 木之下) is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: * , Japanese murder victim * , Japanese photographer * Alicia Kinoshita (born 1967), Japanese sailor * , Japanese actress * Cherry Kinoshita ...

to the west of Kōdai-ji, and later that same year moved her palace and its front garden from

Fushimi Castle , also known as or Fushimi-Momoyama Castle, is a Japanese castle located in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto, Fushimi Ward, Kyoto. Fushimi Castle was constructed from 1592 to 1594 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi at the end of the Sengoku period as his retirement residen ...

to make it her own residence. He also moved the abbot's quarters and a ''

chashitsu ''Chashitsu'' (, "tea room") in Japanese tradition is an architectural space designed to be used for Japanese tea ceremony, tea ceremony (''chanoyu'') gatherings. The architectural style that developed for ''chashitsu'' is referred to as the '' ...

'' from Fushimi Castle. Tokugawa Ieyasu appointed ''

Kyoto Shoshidai The was an important administrative and political office in the Tokugawa shogunate. The office was the personal representative of the military dictators Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi in Kyoto, the seat of the Japanese Emperor, and was ado ...

Itakura Katsushige was a Japanese daimyō of the Azuchi–Momoyama Period to early Edo period. He fought at the side of Tokugawa Ieyasu at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. He was also an ordained Shin Buddhist priest. Katsuhige's daimyō family claimed descent ...

as the magistrate of construction and having his subordinate

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

work on the construction of the temple Among them Hori Naomasa was particularly significant, and a wooden statue of Naomasa is enshrined in the Kaisan-do Hall (Founder's Hall) of Kōdai-ji. The new temple was consecrated in 1606 as a

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 ...

sect temple. In July 1624, the temple converted from the Sōtō sect to the Rinzai sect. Kōdai-in's brother

Kinoshita Iesada was a samurai of the Sengoku through early Edo periods. He was the son of . Born Sugihara Magobei (杉原孫兵衛), he later took the new family name Kinoshita ("under the tree"), possibly to show his support for his brother-in-law, the general ...

, had close ties to the Rinzai temple of

Kennin-ji is a historic Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan, and head temple of its associated branch of Rinzai Buddhism. It is considered to be one of the so-called Kyoto ''Gozan'' or "five most important Zen temples of Kyoto". History Kennin-ji was ...

, where one of his son's was a monk. Kōdai-in died later that year, and her palace was converted into the ''tatchū'' sub-temple of Entoku-in by Kinoshita Toshifusa. It has since become the Kinoshita ''

bodaiji A in Japanese Buddhism is a temple which, generation after generation, takes care of a family's dead, giving them burial and performing ceremonies in their soul's favor.Iwanami kojien The name is derived from the term , which originally meant ju ...

''. On February 9, 1789, a fire broke out at Kōdai-ji, destroying the small abbot's quarters and the Refrectory. In 1795, the former palace of Kōdai-in, which had been located at Entoku-in, was dismantled and relocated to become Kōdai-ji's abbot's quarters. However, this structure was burned down on July 26, 1863, by anti-shogunate agitators who were upset by news that

Matsudaira Shungaku , also known as Matsudaira Keiei,Beasley, William G. (1955). ''Select Documents on Japanese Foreign Policy, 1853–1868'', p. 335. or better known as Matsudaira Shungaku (春嶽) was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the Edo period. He was head of Fuku ...

intended to use the building as his residence in Kyoto.. In 1867, a group of former ''

Shinsengumi The was a small secret police organization, elite group of swordsmen that was organized by commoners and low rank samurai, commissioned by the (military government) during Japan's Bakumatsu period (late Tokugawa shogunate) in 1863. It was ac ...

'' samurai who had defected to the imperial side made Gesshin-in, a sub-temple of Kōdai-ji as their barracks. The group called themselves the "Imperial Throne Guards", claiming to be there to protect the tomb of

Emperor Kōmei Osahito (22 July 1831 – 30 January 1867), posthumously honored as Emperor Kōmei, was the 121st emperor of Japan, according to the List of Emperors of Japan, traditional order of succession.Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'')孝明天皇 ...

, but were annihilated in the Shinsengumi November that year. Most of the structures of Kōdai-ji have been destroyed in fires, and the only structures remaining from the original construction are the Kaisan-do, the mausoleum (Otamaya), and to ''chashitsu'' teahouses. The interior decoration of the mausoleum (Otamaya) uses Momoyama-style lacquerware, which is called "Kodaiji lacquerware." The

android Android most commonly refers to: *Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), a mobile operating system primarily developed by Google * Android TV, a operating system developed ...

Mindar has given sermons on the ''

Heart Sutra The ''Heart Sūtra'', ) is a popular sutra in Mahayana, Mahāyāna Buddhism. In Sanskrit, the title ' translates as "The Heart of the Prajnaparamita, Perfection of Wisdom". The Sutra famously states, "Form is emptiness (''śūnyatā''), em ...

'' at Kōdai-ji since 2019. File:Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Kodaiji).jpg, Portrait of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, kept at Kōdai-ji's treasury, is registered as an Important Cultural Asset Entokuin Kyoto18n4272.jpg, Gardens of Kōdai-ji 170923 Kodaiji Kyoto Japan05n.jpg, Kaisan-do KoudaijiOtamaya.jpg, Otamaya File:Kodaiji-2002-0098.jpg, Ihō-an, a teahouse in the temple's grounds File:Kōdaiji Temple sakura blossoms (51473589649).jpg, Hashin-tei gravel garden in spring The temple possesses a number of objects designated as Important Cultural Assets. Among these are the

Sanmon A or is the most important mon of a Japanese Zen Buddhist temple, and is part of the Zen '' shichidō garan'', the group of buildings that forms the heart of a Zen Buddhist temple.JAANUS It can be often found in temples of other denominations ...

and the Otamaya, noted for its use of ''

maki-e is a Japanese lacquerware, Japanese lacquer decoration technique in which pictures, patterns, and letters are drawn with lacquer on the surface of lacquerware, and then metal powder such as gold or silver is sprinkled and fixed on the surface ...

.'' Lacquerware has a tradition at this temple. The temple is nicknamed the "''maki-e'' temple". One of the ''maki-e'' patterns used on a '' natsume'' tea utensil is called ''Kōdai-ji bun natsume'' (高台寺文棗), featuring the imperial chrysanthemum seal and the paulownia seal of the regent. The treasury also holds paintings, including one of Hideyoshi, as well as textiles, and a bronze

bell A bell /ˈbɛl/ () is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be m ...

with an inscription dating it to 1606.

References

External links

Official English site

高台寺
official site (in Japanese and Chinese) {{DEFAULTSORT:Kodai-ji Kennin-ji temples Buddhist temples in Kyoto Places of Scenic Beauty Historic Sites of Japan 1606 establishments in Japan Important Cultural Properties of Japan