is a Shingon-sect

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 ...

in the Kokubu neighborhood of the city of

Miyazu, Kyoto 270px, Miyazu City Hall is a city located in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 16,988 in 8348 households and a population density of 98 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Miyazu is loca ...

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 ...

. It is one of the few surviving

provincial temple were Buddhist temples established in each of the provinces of Japan by Emperor Shōmu during the Nara period (710 – 794). History Shōmu (701 – 756?) decreed both a ''kokubun-ji'' for monks and a for nuns to be established in each ...

s established by

Emperor Shōmu was the 45th emperor of Japan,Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 聖武天皇 (45)/ref> according to the traditional order of succession. Shōmu's reign spanned the years 724 through 749, during the Nara period. Traditional narrative Be ...

during the

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from CE 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the cap ...

(710–794). Due to this connection, the foundation stones of the Nara period temple now located to the south of the present day complex were designated as a National Historic Site in 1916.

History

The ''

Shoku Nihongi The is an imperially-commissioned Japanese history text. Completed in 797, it is the second of the ''Six National Histories'', coming directly after the '' Nihon Shoki'' and followed by ''Nihon Kōki''. Fujiwara no Tsugutada and Sugano no Mamichi ...

'' records that in 741, as the country recovered from a major smallpox epidemic,

ordered that a monastery and nunnery be established in every

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

, the . These temples were built to a semi-standardized template, and served both to spread Buddhist orthodoxy to the provinces, and to emphasize the power of the

centralized government under the ''

Ritsuryō , , is the historical law system based on the philosophies of Confucianism and Chinese Legalism in Japan. The political system in accord to Ritsuryō is called "Ritsuryō-sei" (律令制). ''Kyaku'' (格) are amendments of Ritsuryō, ''Shiki'' (� ...

'' system. The Tango Kokubun-ji is located is located on an

alluvial fan An alluvial fan is an accumulation of sediments that fans outwards from a concentrated source of sediments, such as a narrow canyon emerging from an escarpment. They are characteristic of mountainous terrain in arid to semiarid climates, but a ...

that gently descends south from Mt. Nariai, southeast of the

Tango Peninsula was a province of Japan in the area of northern Kyoto Prefecture. Tango bordered on Tanba to the south, Tajima to the west, and Wakasa to the east. Its abbreviated form name was . It was also referred to as or . In terms of the Gokishichi ...

. The exact date of the temple's foundation is unknown; but is believed that work started around 741 AD as it is mentioned in historical records from 756 in a list of 26 ''kokubun-ji'' in various provinces, and

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 from this period have also been found on the site. The temple's name appears repeatedly in

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 Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese. ...

records, including the

Engishiki The is a Japanese book about laws and customs. The major part of the writing was completed in 927. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Engi-shiki''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 178. History In 905, Emperor Daigo ordered the compilation of the ...

of 927 AD. During 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 ...

, the temple apparently suffered from a calamity during which its gold and bronze main image, a statue of Yakushi Nyōrai was stolen. The temple was reconstructed, and its new

pagoda A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...

appears in

Sesshū Tōyō (c. 1420 – 26 August 1506) has been regarded as one of the greatest painters in Japanese history. Sesshū was a Zen-Shu priest painter of the Muromachi period in Japan, prominently recognised for his art of sumi-e (black ink painting). Initi ...

's early

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 ...

painting of

Ama-no-Hashidate Amanohashidate (天橋立 ja, Heaven's bridge) is one of Japan's three scenic views. The sandbar is located in Miyazu Bay in northern Kyoto Prefecture. It forms part of the Tango-Amanohashidate-Ōeyama Quasi-National Park. Location A thin s ...

. It was destroyed again in 1507 during the invasion of Tango Province by the

Takeda clan The was a Japanese samurai clan active from the late Heian period until the late 16th century. The clan was historically based in Kai Province in present-day Yamanashi Prefecture. The clan reached its greatest influence under the rule of Taked ...

Wakasa Province was a province of Japan in the area that is today the southwestern portion of Fukui Prefecture in the Hokuriku region of Japan. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Wakasa''" in . Wakasa bordered on Echizen, Ōmi, Tanba, Tango, and Yamash ...

, and once again in 1542. In the early

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 ...

, the temple was swept away by a flood in 1683, after which it was rebuilt on a much smaller scale on the hill to the north, where it is now located. The site of the original temple has been known since antiquity. The Kondō and Middle Gate were aligned north to south, with a

Pagoda A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...

on the west. Currently, the foundation stones for the Kondō remain in situ, indicating a structure that is five by six bays in size. This corresponds to the building as depicted in the Kamakura period "Tango Kokubunji Revival Engi". Only two cornerstones for the Middle Gate survive, and the building is not depicted in the "Tango Kokubunji Revival Engi"; however, it is shown in the painting by Sesshū. Likewise, the Pagoda is not depicted in the Kamakura period "Tango Kokubunji Revival Engi", but is shown by Sesshū as a five-story structure. Currently, sixteen foundation stones remain in situ. It is believed that all of these foundation stones are not the Nara period original foundations, but date from the 1334 reconstruction. Currently, the area around the ruins of Kokubunji has been maintained as a park and is open to the public. Adjacent to the north side is the , which displays some of the excavated roof tiles and related materials. The temple site is a five minute walk from the "Tango Museum Mae" bus stoops the Tango Kairiku Bus from

Iwatakiguchi Station is a passenger railway station in located in the city of Miyazu, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan, operated by the private railway company Willer Trains (Kyoto Tango Railway). Lines Iwatakiguchi Station is a station of the Miyazu Line, and is located ...

Cultural Properties

National Important Cultural Properties

Nanboku-chō period The Nanboku-chō period (南北朝時代, ''Nanboku-chō jidai'', "North and South court period", also known as the Northern and Southern Courts period), spanning from 1336 to 1392, was a period that occurred during the formative years of the Mur ...

, document recording the history of the reconstruction of Tango Kokubun-ji from 1328 to 1334. It is one of the few historical materials that reveals the circumstances of the construction of local temples in the Middle Ages, and the only historical material that concretely shows the reconstruction activities of ''kokubunji'' in the western part of Japan from the late Kamakura period to the

. The document was designated as a Kyoto Prefecture Tangible Cultural Property in 1990 and re-designated as a national Important Cultural Property in 1992.

Gallery

Tango Kokubunji-ato, zenkei-3.jpg File:Tango Kokubunji-ato, kondou-1.jpg, Site of the Kondō
File:Tango Kokubunji-ato, kondou-2.jpg, Foundation Stones of the Kondō File:Tango Kokubunji-ato, tou.jpg, Site of the Pagoda File:Tango Kokubunji-ato, chumon.jpg, Site of the Middle Gate
File:伝丹後国分寺跡出土軒丸瓦・軒平瓦.JPG, Nara period roof tiles 丹後国分寺再興縁起 (複製).JPG, ''Tango Kokubunji Revival Engi'' (ICP)

References

External links