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 ...

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 ...

. It stands on

Mount Takao is a mountain in the city of Hachiōji, Tokyo, Japan. It is protected within Meiji no Mori Takao Quasi-National Park. Standing tall and located within an hour of downtown Tokyo, it is a popular hiking spot, with eight hiking trails and more t ...

to the northwest of the center of the city. The temple adheres to Shingon Buddhism. Its principal image is a statue of

Bhaisajyaguru Bhaiṣajyaguru ( sa, भैषज्यगुरु, zh, t= , ja, 薬師仏, ko, 약사불, bo, སངས་རྒྱས་སྨན་བླ), or ''Bhaishajyaguru'', formally Bhaiṣajya-guru-vaiḍūrya-prabhā-rāja ("Medicine Master ...

(''Yakushi Nyorai''), the Buddha of Healing or "Medicine Buddha". The temple was first established in the year 824, as a merger of two private temples founded earlier by

Wake no Kiyomaro was a high-ranking Japanese official during the Nara period. He was born in Bizen Province (now Wake, Okayama) to a family of politically important, devoted Buddhists who hoped to keep Buddhism and politics separate through religious reform. He b ...

. They were the Jingan-ji (神願寺) in Kiyomaro's home province and the Takaosan-ji (高雄山寺).

Treasures

Jingo-ji holds sixteen

National Treasures of Japan Some of the National Treasures of Japan A is the most precious of Japan's Tangible Cultural Properties, as determined and designated by the Agency for Cultural Affairs (a special body of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Scien ...

."Takaosan, Jingoji Buddhist Temple" (leaflet published by Jingo-ji) They include the ''honzon'' and other statues. Another treasure is a list written by Kūkai in 812 called the and displays some of Kukai's talent for calligraphy. This list contains people and deities in 812 who underwent the abhisheka at Takaosan-ji presided by Kūkai. The Buddhist Sutra "Bimashōkyō", translated by Guṇabhadra, was handed down at the temple. It is "one of the a volume from the Issaikyō (a Buddhist corpus), commonly known as Jingo-ji kyō ... The corpus originally consisted of more than 5,400 volumes in total, but only 2,317 still remain as the rest were scattered outside the temple."

Buildings

Buildings at Jingo-ji have been destroyed by fire and war. Of the original buildings, only the Daishi-dō survived 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 during which the war started; the war ended during the Bunmei ...

; even the present Daishi-dō is of uncertain date.

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 ...

, a ''

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 ...

'' and former

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 adop ...

in 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 ...

, commissioned a major reconstruction in 1623. Another reconstruction took place in the 1930s with a contribution from Gendō Yamaguchi. Present structures include the following: *

Rōmon The is one of two types of two-storied gate used in Japan (the other one being the ''nijūmon'', see photo in the gallery below). Even though it was originally developed by Buddhist architecture, it is now used at both Buddhist temples and Shin ...

(1623) *

Kondō Kondō, Kondo or Kondou (近藤 "near wisteria") is a surname prominent in Japanese culture, although it also occurs in other countries. Notable people with the surname include: * , Japanese ballet dancer * Dorinne K. Kondo, anthropologist * Kond ...

(金堂, 1934), housing the central image of Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of Healing. *Bishamon-dō (1623) *Godai-dō (五大堂, 1623), housing statues of Fudō Myōō and other wrathful deities. *Bell tower (1623) *Daishi-dō (大師堂, date unrecorded) * Tahōtō (1934) The temple is located above the , and has a special built on the grounds. Visitors can purchase tiny plates made of clay to throw out from the famous cliffs, the , overlooking Kiyotaki River, with the hopes of one's plate hitting the river far below. Buses from the center of the city arrive at a stop alongside the road. A long set of stairs leads down to the river, and a short bridge leads across it. A similar set of stairs leads up to the gate of the temple.

Sources

This article incorporates material translated from 神護寺 (''Jingo-ji'') in the Japanese Wikipedia, retrieved on December 28, 2008. Other information obtained by Japanese documentary .

References

{{Authority control Buddhist temples in Kyoto Important Cultural Properties of Japan Kōyasan Shingon temples

Treasures

Buildings

See also

Sources

References