is a

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

of the Tendai sect located in the city of Kusatsu,

Shiga Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Shiga Prefecture has a population of 1,412,916 (1 October 2015) and has a geographic area of . Shiga Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the north, Gifu Prefecture to the nort ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. The temple was founded in the Hakuho period and its grounds were designated a National Historic Site in 2004. The complex includes several

Muromachi The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...

Edo Period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

buildings, two of which are designated as Important Cultural Properties.

History

The foundations of Ashiura Kannon-ji are uncertain. According to the temple's legend, it was founded by

Prince Shōtoku , also known as or , was a semi-legendary regent and a politician of the Asuka period in Japan who served under Empress Suiko. He was the son of Emperor Yōmei and his consort, Princess Anahobe no Hashihito, who was also Yōmei's younger half-s ...

and

Hata no Kawakatsu , sometimes called Hada no Kōkatsu, was a legendary figure in Japanese folklore, who is believed to have introduced ritual Shinto dances to Japan in the sixth century. He is also considered the progenitor of a hereditary line which includes many ...

and belonged to the Sanron sect of early

Japanese Buddhism Buddhism has been practiced in Japan since about the 6th century CE. Japanese Buddhism () created many new Buddhist schools, and some schools are original to Japan and some are derived from Chinese Buddhist schools. Japanese Buddhism has had a ...

. It is known that the

Hata clan was an immigrant clan active in Japan since the Kofun period (250–538), according to the history of Japan laid out in '' Nihon Shoki''. ''Hata'' is the Japanese reading of the Chinese surname ''Qin'' () given to the State of Qin and the Qi ...

controlled much of the area of

Ōmi Province was a province of Japan, which today comprises Shiga Prefecture. It was one of the provinces that made up the Tōsandō circuit. Its nickname is . Under the ''Engishiki'' classification system, Ōmi was ranked as one of the 13 "great countrie ...

during this period, and

archaeological excavation In archaeology, excavation is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains. An excavation site or "dig" is the area being studied. These locations range from one to several areas at a time during a project and can be condu ...

s have found Hakuho period

roof tile A roof ( : roofs or rooves) is the top covering of a building, including all materials and constructions necessary to support it on the walls of the building or on uprights, providing protection against rain, snow, sunlight, extremes of temper ...

s confirming that a temple existed here since the late 7th century AD. At some point it fell into ruins, and it was restored in 1408 as a temple of the

Tendai , also known as the Tendai Lotus School (天台法華宗 ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just "''hokke shū''") is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition (with significant esoteric elements) officially established in Japan in 806 by the Japanese m ...

school. The location of the temple is strategic point for amphibious and land transportation in the southeastern part of

Lake Biwa is the largest freshwater lake in Japan, located entirely within Shiga Prefecture (west-central Honshu), northeast of the former capital city of Kyoto. Lake Biwa is an ancient lake, over 4 million years old. It is estimated to be the 13th ol ...

, as it is on the ancient

Tōsandō is a Japanese geographical term. It means both an ancient division of the country and the main road running through it. It is part of the ''Gokishichidō'' system. It was situated along the central mountains of northern Honshu, specifically th ...

(

Nakasendō The , also called the ,Richard Lane, ''Images from the Floating World'' (1978) Chartwell, Secaucus ; pg. 285 was one of the five routes of the Edo period, and one of the two that connected Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto in Japan. There were 6 ...

) and Tōkaidō highways connecting the capital of

Heian-kyō Heian-kyō was one of several former names for the city now known as Kyoto. It was the official capital of Japan for over one thousand years, from 794 to 1868 with an interruption in 1180. Emperor Kanmu established it as the capital in 794, mov ...

with the provinces of eastern Japan, as well as the main route from Kyoto to the

Ise Grand Shrine The , located in Ise, Mie Prefecture of Japan, is a Shinto shrine dedicated to the sun goddess Amaterasu. Officially known simply as , Ise Jingū is a shrine complex composed of many Shinto shrines centered on two main shrines, and . The Inn ...

. From the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

, the temple gained great wealth and political power.

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

named the head abbot of the temple as a ''

daikan ''Daikan'' (代官) was an official in Japan that acted on behalf of a ruling monarch or a lord at the post they had been appointed to. Since the Middle Ages, ''daikan'' were in charge of their territory and territorial tax collection. In the Edo ...

'' and ''

bugyō was a title assigned to ''samurai'' officials during the feudal period of Japan. ''Bugyō'' is often translated as commissioner, magistrate, or governor, and other terms would be added to the title to describe more specifically a given official' ...

'' with control over all shipping on Lake Biwa, and estates in southern Ōmi with a ''

kokudaka refers to a system for determining land value for taxation purposes under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo-period Japan, and expressing this value in terms of ''koku'' of rice. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Koku"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 54 ...

'' of 24,000 ''koku''. The head abbot accompanied

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...

Hizen was an old province of Japan in the area of the Saga and Nagasaki prefectures. It was sometimes called , with Higo Province. Hizen bordered on the provinces of Chikuzen and Chikugo. The province was included in Saikaidō. It did not inclu ...

as an aide-de-camp to

during the

Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598) The Japanese invasions of Korea of 1592–1598 involved two separate yet linked invasions: an initial invasion in 1592 (), a brief truce in 1596, and a second invasion in 1597 (). The conflict ended in 1598 with the withdrawal of Japanese force ...

. Following the establishment of the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

, Tokugawa Ieyasu and his early successors, increased the temple's holdings to 40,000 ''koku'', which was equivalent to that of medium-sized ''

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 n ...

'' fief, and the temple was also responsible for maintaining the Nakahara Goten, a palace constructed for the purpose of providing lodging to the

Shogun , officially , was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamakur ...

should he ever need to visit

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

. However, in a reform of the shogunal administration in 1685, the temple's secular responsibilities were abolished.

Precincts

The temple itself was located in a fortified compound, surrounded by moats and high earthen walls. The temple's Amida-do was constructed in the

Muromachi period The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...

and was relocated to this location from the temple of Fukan-ji in Kyoto. It is a National Important Cultural Property. The temple's

Shoin is a type of audience hall in Japanese architecture that was developed during the Muromachi period. The term originally meant a study and a place for lectures on the sūtra within a temple, but later it came to mean just a drawing room or stu ...

is a surviving structure of the early Edo Period Nakahara Goten, and is also a National Important Cultural Property. The temple is open to the public only twice a year, for two days in the spring and for one day in autumn.

References

External links

Shiga-Biwako Tourist Information page

{{Buddhist temples in Japan Buddhist temples in Shiga Prefecture Tendai temples Kusatsu, Shiga Ōmi Province Historic Sites of Japan

History

Precincts

See also

References

External links