was a former
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 ...
monastery in northeastern
Kyoto
Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...
,
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 ...
, endowed by
Emperor Sutoku in fulfillment of a sacred vow. It is known as one of the ,
[Adophson, Mikael S. (2000)]
''The Gates of Power: Monks, Courtiers, and Warriors in Premodern Japan,'' p. 388 n99.
/ref> which encompass monastery complexes which enjoyed extravagant Imperial patronage from their inception. They are sometimes identified as the "Superlative Temples" or the "''Shō'' Temples" because of the middle syllable of the temple name.
History
This temple and the other Rokushō-ji establishments had a particular function within the Imperial . The Rokushō-ji were "sacred vow temples" (''gogan-ji'') built by imperial command following a precedent established by Emperor Shirakawa's
Hosshō-ji.kuge
The was a Japanese Aristocracy (class), aristocratic Social class, class that dominated the Japanese Imperial Court in Kyoto. The ''kuge'' were important from the establishment of Kyoto as the capital during the Heian period in the late 8th ce ...
'' families and to justify the use of public taxes for the benefit of members of the imperial-house, the religious intent giving support to the political interest.[Hall, John '' et al.'' (1974). ''Medieval Japan: Essays in Institutional History,'' p. 21.]
The Rokushō-ji were also called the six "Superiority Temples;" and each were uniquely dedicated to an aspect of esoteric Buddhist ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of existence, being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of realit ...
, as in
* the "Superiority of Buddhist Law"[Varley, H. Paul. (1980). Kitabatake Chikafusa, 1359">Kitabatake_Chikafusa.html" ;"title="Kitabatake Chikafusa">Kitabatake Chikafusa, 1359 ''Jinnō Shōtōki ("A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns: Jinnō Shōtōki of Kitabatake Chikafusa" translated by H. Paul Varley),'' p. 200.] --
: , founded by Emperor Shirakawa in 1077.[Takagaki, Cary Shinji. (1999)]
"The Rokusho-ji, the six superiority temples of Heian Japan," p. 2.
/ref>
* the "Superiority of Worship"Emperor Toba
was the 74th Emperor of Japan,Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 鳥羽天皇 (74)/ref> according to the traditional order of succession.
Toba's reign spanned the years from 1107 through 1123.
Genealogy
Before his ascension to the Ch ...
(Shirakawa's grandson) in 1118.
See also
* List of Buddhist temples in Kyoto
Notes
References
* Hall
In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gre ...
, John Whitney and Jeffrey P. Mass, eds. (1974)
''Medieval Japan: Essays in Institutional History.''
New Haven: Yale University Press
Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...
OCLC 50635949
eprinted by Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1988.
OCLC 18576991
* Iwao, Seiichi, Teizō Iyanaga, Susumu Ishii, Shōichirō Yoshida, ''et al.'' (2002)
''Dictionnaire historique du Japon.''
Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose.
OCLC 51096469
* Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1956)
''Kyoto: The Old Capital of Japan, 794-1869.''
Kyoto: The Ponsonby Memorial Society
OCLC 36644
* Takagaki, Cary Shinji. (1999)
"The Rokusho-ji, the six superiority temples of Heian Japan."
(University of Toronto PhD thesis, http://hdl.handle.net/1807/13266). Ottawa: Library and Archives Canada">National Library of Canada
Library and Archives Canada (LAC; ) is the federal institution tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is the 16th largest library in the world. T ...
/Bibliothèque nationale du Canada.
* Varley, H. Paul, ed. (1980).
, 1359">Kitabatake_Chikafusa.html" ;"title="Kitabatake Chikafusa">Kitabatake Chikafusa, 1359 ''Jinnō Shōtōki ("A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns: Jinnō Shōtōki of Kitabatake Chikafusa" translated by H. Paul Varley).'' New York: Columbia University Press.