, is a Shingon

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

temple in Kasai,

Hyōgo Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and has a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to the southeast, an ...

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 mountain name ('' sangō'') is .

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 ...

ordered its construction in 745 (the 17th year of the Tenpyō era) at the request of Gyōki, a Buddhist priest.

History

According to the temple records, the priest Gyōki received an oracle from a

shrine A shrine ( la, scrinium "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred or holy sacred space, space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor worship, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, Daemon (mythology), daem ...

, , instructing a temple to be built on these grounds. Gyōki took the request to

, who then ordered the construction of Sagami-ji. When finished in 745, it was named ''Sagami'' after the oracle's origins. Inscriptions on temple

plaques Plaque may refer to: Commemorations or awards * Commemorative plaque, a plate or tablet fixed to a wall to mark an event, person, etc. * Memorial Plaque (medallion), issued to next-of-kin of dead British military personnel after World War I * Pla ...

record later visits from various

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

and ''

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 Kamakur ...

s'', including ''shōgun''

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 ...

. The building was badly damaged in the Heiji Rebellion of 1159, and later rebuilt. The main temple was burnt down in conflicts during 1578, and was not rebuilt until the ''

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 ...

'' of Himeji,

Honda Tadamasa was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the early Edo period, who ruled the Kuwana Domain and then the Himeji Domain. He was the son of Honda Tadakatsu. Tadamasa's first battle was during the Siege of Odawara, in 1590; he also fought at the Battle of ...

, agreed to aid the

Ikeda clan was a Japanese clan that claimed descent from Minamoto no Yorimitsu (948-1021) of the Seiwa Genji. Minamoto no Yasumasa, the fourth generation descending from Yorimitsu, and younger brother of Minamoto no Yorimasa (1104-1180), was the first to ...

in its reconstruction.

Architecture

Images

File:Sagamiji01s3200.jpg,

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 ...

File:Sagamiji02s3200.jpg, Entrance File:Sagamiji07s3200.jpg, Courtyard File:Sagamiji05s3200.jpg, The shōrō (belfry) File:Sagami Temple 2600px.jpg, Shōrō closeup File:Sagamiji04s3200.jpg, The

bracket A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

s of the '' tahōtō'' File:Sagamiji08s3200.jpg, Main temple path

External links

Buddhist temples in Hyōgo Prefecture Important Cultural Properties of Japan Pagodas in Japan Shingon Buddhism 8th-century establishments in Japan Kōyasan Shingon temples Jingū-ji Religious buildings and structures completed in 745 {{Japan-religious-struct-stub