is a

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

temple of the Ji sect in

Matsuyama, Ehime 270px, Matsuyama City Hall 270px, Ehime Prefectural Capital Building is the capital city of Ehime Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku, in Japan and is also Shikoku's largest city. , the city had an estimated population of 505,948 in 243,541 h ...

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 ...

. It is famed as the birthplace of the Buddhist sage

Ippen 1234–1289 also known as Zuien was a Japanese Buddhist itinerant preacher (''hijiri'') who founded the branch of Pure Land Buddhism. Life Ippen was born at Hōgon-ji, a temple in Iyo Province (modern Ehime Prefecture) on the island of Shikok ...

, who founded the Ji (time) sect as an offshoot of the Jōdo (

Pure Land Buddhism Pure Land Buddhism or the Pure Land School ( zh, c=淨土宗, p=Jìngtǔzōng) is a broad branch of Mahayana, Mahayana Buddhism focused on achieving rebirth in a Pure land, Pure Land. It is one of the most widely practiced traditions of East Asi ...

) sect in 1276.

History

According to temple records, the temple was founded in 668 by an ancestor of the

Kōno clan Kōno, Kono or Kouno (written: 河野, 幸野, 高野 or 甲野) is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Kōno Bairei (1844–1895), Japanese painter, book illustrator and art teacher * Kōno Hironaka (1849–1923), Japane ...

at the behest of the abdicated

Empress Saimei The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

was born at the temple in what was then

Iyo province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan in the area of northwestern Shikoku.Louis-Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Tosa''" in . Iyo bordered on Sanuki Province to the northeast, Awa Province (Tokushima), Awa to the east ...

in 1239. As a child he was known as Shōjomaru. In the year 1248, his mother died, and he became a monk with the name Zuien. In 1251 he left Iyo to study under Shōdatsu in Dazaifu. He returned to Iyo in 1263 at the time of his father's death, and married. In 1271, he vowed to give up his domestic life. On a visit to Kumano Shrine in 1274, Ippen experienced a revelation and "spent the remaining sixteen years of his life in constant travel throughout Japan." "The term ''ippen'' 一遍 is a common word meaning 'once,' but its second element (''-pen, hen'') also has the meaning of 'everywhere' or 'all pervading.'" In 1292, three years after Ippen's death, Hōgon-ji was rededicated as a temple of the Ji sect. On August 10, 2013, the main temple building and priest's quarters were destroyed by fire.

Buildings and grounds

Besides the main hall, the temple grounds included a

rock garden A rock garden, also known as a rockery and formerly as a rockwork, is a garden, or more often a part of a garden, with a landscaping framework of rocks, stones, and gravel, with planting appropriate to this setting. Usually these are small ...

and several kuhi (

haiku is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 Mora (linguistics), morae (called ''On (Japanese prosody), on'' in Japanese) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a ''kire ...

stones) and other stone monuments. The kuhi include a

Matsuyama 270px, Matsuyama City Hall 270px, Ehime Prefectural Capital Building is the capital city of Ehime Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku, in Japan and is also Shikoku's largest city. , the city had an estimated population of 505,948 in 243,541 h ...

poet

Masaoka Shiki , pen-name of Masaoka Noboru (正岡升), was a Japanese poet, author, and literary critic in Meiji period Japan. Shiki is regarded as a major figure in the development of modern haiku poetry, credited with writing nearly 20,000 stanzas during ...

: :色里や十歩はなれて秋の風（正岡子規） ::''irozato ya jippa hanarete aki no kaze'' :red-light district :only ten steps away :autumn wind Other kuhi feature haiku by

Mokichi Saitō was a Japanese poet of the Taishō period, a member of the Araragi school of tanka, and a psychiatrist. Mokichi was born in the village of Kanakame, now part of Kaminoyama, Yamagata in 1882. He attended Tokyo Imperial University Medical Sc ...

and Kawada Jun.

Treasures

The temple's most noted treasure, a 114 centimeter high (mid

Muromachi Period The , also known as the , is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate ( or ), which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi ...

) ( Important Cultural Property), dating from mid-

Muromachi period The , also known as the , is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate ( or ), which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi ...

(14th-16th centuries) was reportedly lost in the fire on August 10, 2013.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hogon-ji (Matsuyama) Buddhist temples in Ehime Prefecture Ji temples Important Cultural Properties of Japan Designated historic sites of Ehime Prefecture