is a

Buddhist temple A Buddhist temple or Buddhist monastery is the place of worship for Buddhism, Buddhists, the followers of Buddhism. They include the structures called vihara, chaitya, stupa, wat, khurul and pagoda in different regions and languages. Temples in B ...

Nara The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States government within the executive branch, charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It is also task ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. A number of wooden statues of the

Heian The Japanese word Heian (平安, lit. "peace") may refer to: * Heian period, an era of Japanese history * Heian-kyō, the Heian-period capital of Japan that has become the present-day city of Kyoto * Heian series, a group of karate kata (forms) * ...

and

Kamakura , officially , is a city of Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan. It is located in the Kanto region on the island of Honshu. The city has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 people per km2 over the tota ...

periods have been designated Important Cultural Properties and the temple's five-coloured

camellia ''Camellia'' (pronounced or ) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are found in tropical and subtropical areas in East Asia, eastern and South Asia, southern Asia, from the Himalayas east to Japan and Indonesia. There are ...

s are a Prefectural Natural Monument.

Name

The ''byakugō'' or

urna In Buddhist art and culture, the Urna (ūrṇā, ūrṇākeśa or ūrṇākośa (Pāli uṇṇa), and known as in Chinese) is a spiral or circular dot placed on the forehead of Buddhist images as an auspicious mark. As set out in the '' Lakk ...

is the curl of white hair between the eyebrows that is one of the thirty-two physical characteristics of the Buddha.

Buildings

The five by five bay Hondō, with tiled hipped roof, dates from the early

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

(first half of the seventeenth century) and has been designated a Municipal Cultural Property. A

tahōtō A is a form of Japanese pagoda found primarily at Vajrayana, Esoteric Shingon and Tendai school Buddhist temples in Japan, Buddhist temples. It is unique among pagodas because it has an even number of stories (two). (The second story has ...

was still standing in the

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

Treasures

Byakugō-ji's seven

Important Cultural Properties of Japan An The term is often shortened into just is an item officially classified as Tangible Cultural Property (Japan), Tangible Cultural Property by the Government of Japan, Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs (Ministry of Education, Cul ...

are, from the

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 Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

, an Amida Nyorai, and a

bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a person who has attained, or is striving towards, '' bodhi'' ('awakening', 'enlightenment') or Buddhahood. Often, the term specifically refers to a person who forgoes or delays personal nirvana or ''bodhi'' in ...

traditionally identified as Monju Bosatsu and once enshrined in the temple's

, and from the

Kamakura period The is a period of History of Japan, Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the G ...

, Enma-ō, attendants and , , Jizō Bosatsu, and (. The Taizan-ō was carved by in 1259 and has an inscription documenting repairs in 1498.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Byakugo-ji Buddhist temples in Nara, Nara Shingon Ritsu temples