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

Shingon file:Koyasan (Mount Koya) monks.jpg, Shingon monks at Mount Koya is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asia, originally spread from India to China through traveling monks suc ...

sect located in the city of

Shinshiro is a city located in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 44,581 in 17,691 households, and a population density of 89.3 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Shinshiro is located in east-cent ...

Aichi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Aichi Prefecture has a population of 7,552,873 () and a geographic area of with a population density of . Aichi Prefecture borders Mie Prefecture to the west, Gifu Prefectur ...

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 ...

. Its main image is a statue of Yakushi Nyōrai. The temple is located on the Mount Hōrai and is accessed by a flight of 1425 steps. The grounds have been designated Place of Scenic Beauty and

Natural Monument A natural monument is a natural or natural/cultural feature of outstanding or unique value because of its inherent rarity, representative of aesthetic qualities or cultural significance. Under World Commission on Protected Areas guidelines, nat ...

since 1931. The area is also noted for its population of

Eurasian scops owl The Eurasian scops owl (''Otus scops''), also known as the European scops owl or just scops owl, is a small owl in the typical owl family Strigidae. Its breeding range extends from southern Europe eastwards to southern Siberia and the western Hima ...

, the prefectural bird of

History

Per the temples own history, it was founded in 702 AD by a holy ascetic, Ryūshū Sennin, who carved statues of Yakushi Nyōrai,

Nikkō Bosatsu is a city located in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 80,239 in 36,531 households, and a population density of 55 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . It is a popular destination for Japanese and ...

Gakkō Bosatsu Candraprabha (lit. 'Moonlight', Chinese: 月光菩薩; pinyin: ''Yuèguāng Púsà''; Romanji: ''Gakkō or Gekkō Bosatsu'') is a bodhisattva often seen with Sūryaprabha, as the two siblings serve Bhaiṣajyaguru. Statues of Candraprabha ...

, the

Jūni Shinshō In East Asian Buddhism, the Twelve Heavenly Generals or Twelve Divine Generals are the protective deities, or ''yaksha'', of Bhaisajyaguru, the buddhahood, buddha of healing. They are introduced in the ''Bhaiṣajyaguruvaidūryaprabharāja Sūtra' ...

, Shi-Tennō and other deities out of the living trucks of trees on Mount Hōrai. Prayers at this location cured

Emperor Mommu An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother ( ...

of an affliction, which led to its official recognition. The temple was rebuilt in the

Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle bet ...

Minamoto no Yoritomo was the founder and the first shogun of the Kamakura shogunate of Japan, ruling from 1192 until 1199.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Minamoto no Yoriie" in . He was the husband of Hōjō Masako who acted as regent (''shikken'') after his ...

(who is also credited with building the 1425 stone steps), out of gratitude for sheltering him during the Heiji rebellion.

Adachi Morinaga Adachi Morinaga (安達盛長) (1135–1200) was a Japanese warrior from the Adachi clan who fought for Minamoto no Yoritomo against the Taira. Morinaga had already supported Yoritomo while he lived in exile in Izu province. After the wars, h ...

is also credited with building one of its chapels. The temple suffered from repeated fires during the Kamakura and

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 ...

s, so most written records have been destroyed; however, the

archaeological record The archaeological record is the body of physical (not written) evidence about the past. It is one of the core concepts in archaeology, the academic discipline concerned with documenting and interpreting the archaeological record. Archaeological th ...

in the form of many pottery shards and sutra mounds indicates that the temple existed as a center of both Buddhism and folk religion into 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 ...

. However,

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 ...

was hostile to the temple, and confiscated most of its estates, allowing it 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 only 300 ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. 1 koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about . It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1000 gō. One ''gō'' is the volume of the "rice cup", the plastic measuring cup that is supplied ...

'', whereupon the temple fell into rapid decline. Hōrai-ji recovered considerably during the

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 ...

, and it was especially favored by

Odai no Kata Odai no kata (於大の方, 1528–1602), also known as Dai, Daishi, and Denzûin, was a Japanese noble lady from the Sengoku period. She was the mother of Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate. She was the daughter of Mizuno Tadamas ...

(

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 ...

's mother). Under the

Tokugawa Iemitsu Tokugawa Iemitsu (徳川家光, August 12, 1604 – June 8, 1651) was the third ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa dynasty. He was the eldest son of Tokugawa Hidetada with Oeyo, and the grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Lady Kasuga was his wet nurse, who a ...

, its revenues were increased to 1350 ''koku'' and the

Hōraisan Tōshō-gū is a Shinto shrine located in the city of Shinshiro, Aichi, Shinshiro, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. It enshrines the deified first Shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu. History The Hōraisan Tōshō-gū was established by Shōgun Tokug ...

was built in 1651. The temple belonged to both the Shingon and 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 ...

sects, and became a popular side-trip for travelers on the Tōkaidō. The separation of Buddhism from Shinto and the hostile attitude of the new

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji o ...

towards Buddhism dealt a heavy blow to Hōrai-ji, and with the opening of the

Tōkaidō Main Line The is a major Japanese railway line of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) network, connecting and stations. It is long, not counting its many freight feeder lines around the major cities. The high-speed Tōkaidō Shinkansen largely parallel ...

railway, the number of pilgrims was reduced. The Shinto

was separated from the Buddhist temple, and much of Mount Hōrai became national forest. In 1905, the temple was made a subsidiary of Hōrin-ji in Kyoto which amalgamated the Tendai portion of the temple back into the Shingon portion. The Main Hall burned down in 1915, and could not be rebuilt until 1974.

Cultural Properties

Important cultural properties

Hōrai-ji Sanmon

The

Sanmon A , also called , is the most important gate 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 den ...

of Hōrai-ji is a two-story

Niōmon is the Japanese name of 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 regio ...

gate is one of its few surviving structures from the Edo period. It was built in 1651 as a donation from

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 ...

. The building is built of

zelkova ''Zelkova'' (from Georgian ''dzelkva'', 'stone pillar') is a genus of six species of deciduous trees in the elm family Ulmaceae, native to southern Europe, and southwest and eastern Asia. They vary in size from shrubs (''Z. sicula'') to large tr ...

wood and is painted vermillion. It has a copper shingle roof in the ''irimoya-zukuri''-style. The gate is decorated near the eaves with a bamboo and tiger motif on the front, peony and lion motif on the back, waves and rhinoceros motif on the east and clouds and '' kirin'' motif on the west. A major repair was carried out in 1988. The building has been protected as an

Important Cultural Property of Japan An The term is often shortened into just is an item officially classified as Tangible Cultural Property by the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) and judged to be o ...

since 1953.

Gallery

Horaiji Temple (2007.11.25).jpg, Hondō Houraijisan02.jpg, Hōrai-ji approach

References

External links

Aichi Tourist Guide
{{DEFAULTSORT:Horai-ji Buddhist temples in Aichi Prefecture Places of Scenic Beauty Natural monuments of Japan Shingon Buddhism Shinshiro, Aichi Mikawa Province