is a

Tendai , also known as the Tendai Dharma Flower School (天台法華宗, ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just ''Hokkeshū''), is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition with significant esoteric elements that was officially established in Japan in 806 by t ...

Buddhist 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 ...

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...

in northeastern

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 ...

, established by

Emperor Horikawa was the 73rd emperor of Japan,Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 堀河天皇 (73)/ref> according to the traditional List of emperors of Japan, order of succession. Horikawa's reign spanned the years from Heian period, 1087 through 1107 ...

in fulfillment of a sacred vow. It is known as one of the ,Adophson, Mikael S. (2000)
''The Gates of Power: Monks, Courtiers, and Warriors in Premodern Japan,'' p. 388 n99.
/ref> which encompass monasteries enjoying extravagant Imperial patronage from their inception. They are sometimes identified as the "Superlative Temples" or the "''Shō'' Temples" because of the middle syllable of the temple name.

History

Sonshō-ji was founded in the early

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

. Saishō-ji and the other Rokushō-ji establishments had a particular function within the Imperial . The Rokushō-ji were "sacred vow temples" (''gogan-ji'') built by imperial command following a precedent established by Emperor Shirakawa's Hosshō-ji. Although these temple complexes were ostensibly established for a presumptively pious purpose, :the relationship of Emperors Shirakawa, Toba, Sutoku, and Konoe with Hosshō-ji and the other "imperial vow" temples and with the imperial residences that adjoined the temple complexes is quite revealing. Clearly the temples were not built simply as acts of piety but as ways of protecting estate income and a certain style of life. Evidently the building of new temples could serve as a coercive device to extract support from other ''

kuge The was a Japanese Aristocracy (class), aristocratic Social class, class that dominated the Japanese Imperial Court in Kyoto. The ''kuge'' were important from the establishment of Kyoto as the capital during the Heian period in the late 8th ce ...

'' families and to justify the use of public taxes for the benefit of members of the imperial-house, the religious intent giving support to the political interest. The Rokushō-ji were also called the six "Superiority Temples;" and each were uniquely dedicated to an aspect of esoteric Buddhist

ontology Ontology is the philosophical study of existence, being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of realit ...

, as in * the "Superiority of Buddhist Law"Varley, H. Paul. (1980). Kitabatake Chikafusa, 1359">Kitabatake_Chikafusa.html" ;"title="Kitabatake Chikafusa">Kitabatake Chikafusa, 1359 ''Jinnō Shōtōki ("A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns: Jinnō Shōtōki of Kitabatake Chikafusa" translated by H. Paul Varley),'' p. 200. -- : , founded by Emperor Shirakawa in 1077.Takagaki, Cary Shinji. (1999)
"The Rokusho-ji, the six superiority temples of Heian Japan," p. 2.
/ref> * the "Superiority of Worship" -- : Sonshō-ji, founded by

(Shirakawa's son) in 1102. * the "Most Superior" -- : , founded by

Emperor Toba was the 74th Emperor of Japan,Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 鳥羽天皇 (74)/ref> according to the traditional order of succession. Toba's reign spanned the years from 1107 through 1123. Genealogy Before his ascension to the Ch ...

(Shirakawa's grandson) in 1118. * the "Superiority of Perfection" -- : , founded by Imperial consort Taiken-mon'in (Shirakawa's adopted daughter and the mother of Emperor Sutoku) in 1128. * the "Superiority of Becoming" -- : , founded by

Emperor Sutoku was the 75th emperor of Japan,Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 崇徳天皇 (75)/ref> according to the traditional order of succession. Sutoku's reign spanned the years from 1123 through 1142. Genealogy Before his ascension to the Chr ...

(Shirakawa's great-grandson) in 1139. * the "Superiority of Duration" -- : , founded by

Emperor Konoe was the 76th emperor of Japan,Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 近衛天皇 (76)/ref> according to the traditional order of succession. Konoe's reign spanned the years from 1142 through 1155. Genealogy Before his ascension to the Chr ...

(Shirakawa's great-grandson) in 1149. Construction of the main Amitabha Hall at Sonshō-ji in Kyoto took two years.Yiengpruksawan, Mimi Hall
"The Phoenix Hall at Uji and the symmetries of replication," ''The Art Bulletin'' (December 1995), n37.
/ref>

Notes

References

Hall In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gre ...

, John Whitney and Jeffrey P. Mass, eds. (1974)
''Medieval Japan: Essays in Institutional History.''
New Haven:

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...

OCLC 50635949
eprinted by Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1988.
OCLC 18576991
* Iwao, Seiichi, Teizō Iyanaga, Susumu Ishii, Shōichirō Yoshida, ''et al.'' (2002)
''Dictionnaire historique du Japon.''
Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose.
OCLC 51096469
* Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1956)
''Kyoto: The Old Capital of Japan, 794-1869.''
Kyoto: The Ponsonby Memorial Society
OCLC 36644
* Takagaki, Cary Shinji. (1999)
"The Rokusho-ji, the six superiority temples of Heian Japan."
(University of Toronto PhD thesis, http://hdl.handle.net/1807/13266). Ottawa: Library and Archives Canada">National Library of Canada Library and Archives Canada (LAC; ) is the federal institution tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is the 16th largest library in the world. T ...

History

See also

Notes

References