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 repres ...

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 ...

sect in the city of

Utsunomiya is the prefectural capital city of Tochigi Prefecture in the northern Kantō region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 519,223, and a population density of . The total area of the city is . Utsunomiya is famous for its '' gyoza' ...

Tochigi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Tochigi Prefecture has a population of 1,943,886 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 6,408 km2 (2,474 sq mi). Tochigi Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to th ...

, in northern

Kantō region The is a geographical area of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba and Kanagawa. Sl ...

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 n ...

. The temple is famous for its bas-relief carvings on a cliff face. The '' honzon'' of the temple is a

bas-relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

stone statue of Senjū Kannon. The temple is 19th stop on the

Bandō Sanjūsankasho The ("The Bandō 33 Kannon Pilgrimage") is a series of 33 Buddhist temples in Eastern Japan sacred to Goddess Kannon. Bandō is the old name for what is now the Kantō region,Donald Richie used in this case because the temples are all in the Pref ...

pilgrimage route of 33 temples sacred to Kannon in the Kantō region.

History

The history and foundation of the temple is uncertain, but it appears to date from the late

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 c ...

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

. The temple is located in a valley which contains the ruins of a

Jōmon period The is the time in Japanese history, traditionally dated between 6,000–300 BCE, during which Japan was inhabited by a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united through a common Jōmon culture, which reached a c ...

settlement. According to the temple's own legend, it was founded by

Kūkai Kūkai (; 27 July 774 – 22 April 835Kūkai was born in 774, the 5th year of the Hōki era; his exact date of birth was designated as the fifteenth day of the sixth month of the Japanese lunar calendar, some 400 years later, by the Shingon se ...

in 810 AD after he returned from

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

China. The temple became part of the ''Bandō Sanjūsankasho'' route 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 b ...

. It was under the protection of the powerful Utsunomiya Futaarayama Jinja and the

Utsunomiya clan is the prefectural capital city of Tochigi Prefecture in the northern Kantō region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 519,223, and a population density of . The total area of the city is . Utsunomiya is famous for its '' gyo ...

through 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 ...

. The temple was rebuilt 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 character ...

by Kamehime, the eldest daughter of

Shōgun , 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 Kamaku ...

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 fello ...

, with the assistance of Tenkai as a resting place between

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

and the

Shrines and Temples of Nikkō The UNESCO World Heritage Site Shrines and Temples of Nikkō encompasses 103 buildings or structures and the natural setting around them. It is located in Nikkō, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. The buildings belong to two Shinto shrines (Futarasan Shri ...

. The temple has burned down on several occasions, and most of its documentary history has been lost. Its precincts were excavated in 1965, and Buddha statues from the Kamakura period, votive stones dated 1363, and a copper bowl dated 1551 were found.

Ōya Stone Buddhas

The is a set of ten bas-relief carvings of various Buddhist divinities located on a cliff at Ōya-dera. These carvings were designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1926 and reclassified as a Special National Historic Site in 1954. The carvings are located on the wall of a large natural cave on the southwestern side of a hill made of Ōya stone called Otomeyama. The wall is divided into four large and small quadrants. In the first quadrant, facing west, is a statue of Senjū Kannon with a height of four meters. This is the '' honzon'' image of the temple. According to temple legend, the statue was carved by Kūkai himself, and was once covered by

lacquer Lacquer is a type of hard and usually shiny coating or finish applied to materials such as wood or metal. It is most often made from resin extracted from trees and waxes and has been in use since antiquity. Asian lacquerware, which may be c ...

and

gold leaf Gold leaf is gold that has been hammered into thin sheets (usually around 0.1 µm thick) by goldbeating and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades. The most commonly used gold is 22-kara ...

. In the second quadrant is a sitting image of Shaka Nyōrai with a height of 3.5 meters, flanked to the left and right by Monju Bosatsu and Fugen Bostasu. The statue in the third quadrant a sitting Yakushi Nyōrai with a height of 1.2 meters, flanked by Nikkō Bosatsu and Gakkō Bosatsu. The fourth quadrant is believed to be a seated

Amida Nyōrai Amida can mean : Places and jurisdictions * Amida (Mesopotamia), now Diyarbakır, an ancient city in Asian Turkey; it is (nominal) seat of : ** The Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Amida ** The Latin titular Metropolitan see of Amida of the Roma ...

with a height of 2.6 meters, flanked by status of Kannon Bosatsu and Seishi Bosatsu. In addition, several sitting images depicted on the wall on the right side of the Kannon statue, and a statue of a Buddha above. The statues of Senjū Kannon and Yakushi Nyōrai are believed to date from the early

, with the statue of Shaka Nyōrai from the late Heian period, and the remaining statues from the late Heian to early

. These statues are regarded as having extremely high artistic and academic value, along with the more famous Usuki Stone Buddhas in

Oita Prefecture Oita often refers to: * Ōita Prefecture, Kyushu, Japan * Ōita (city), the capital of the prefecture Oita or Ōita may also refer to: Places * Ōita District, Ōita, a former district in Ōita Prefecture, Japan *Ōita Stadium, a multi-use stad ...

, and the carvings were also designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan in 1986. The temple complex also includes a small museum. Across from the temple is an Ōya stone quarry that has been converted into a park. The park features a massive statue of Kannon, called the created after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

References

External links

Tochichi Prefecture Department of Education home page

Oya-dera official home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oya-ji Utsunomiya Special Historic Sites Tendai temples History of Tochigi Prefecture Shimotsuke Province Buddhist temples in Tochigi Prefecture Important Cultural Properties of Japan Tochigi Prefecture designated tangible cultural property

History

Ōya Stone Buddhas

See also

References

External links