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 ...

located in the Raikyūcho neighborhood of the city of Takahashi,

Okayama Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Okayama Prefecture has a population of 1,826,059 (1 February 2025) and has a geographic area of 7,114 Square kilometre, km2 (2,746 sq mi). Okayama Prefecture ...

, Japan. The temple's full name is . It belongs to the

Eigen-ji is a Buddhist temple in the Eigenji-Takano neighborhood of the city of Higashiōmi, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. It is the head temple of one of the 14 autonomous branches of the Rinzai school of Japanese Zen History Eigen-ji was founded in 1361 b ...

branch of

Rinzai school The Rinzai school (, zh, t=臨濟宗, s=临济宗, p=Línjì zōng), named after Linji Yixuan (Romaji: Rinzai Gigen, died 866 CE) is one of three sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism, along with Sōtō and Ōbaku. The Chinese Linji school, Linji s ...

of Japanese Buddhism, and its ''

honzon , sometimes referred to as a Gohonzon ( or ), is the enshrined main image or principal deity in Japanese Buddhism. The buddha, bodhisattva, or mandala image is located in either a temple or a household butsudan. The image can be either a statue ...

'' is a statue of

Kannon Bosatsu Guanyin () is a common Chinese name of the bodhisattva associated with Karuṇā, compassion known as Avalokiteśvara (). Guanyin is short for Guanshiyin, which means " he One WhoPerceives the Sounds of the World". Originally regarded as m ...

. It is known for its

Japanese garden are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are generally used by Japanese garden desig ...

, which was designated a NationalPlace of Scenic Beauty in 1974, with the area under protection expanded in 2009 to include the Main Hall and

Shoin is a type of audience hall in Japanese architecture that was developed during the Muromachi period. The term originally meant a study and a place for lectures on the sūtra within a temple, but later it came to mean just a drawing room or stu ...

of the temple.

History

The early history and original name of the temple are unknown. It was revived in 1339 when

Ashikaga Takauji also known as Minamoto no Takauji was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Ashikaga shogunate."Ashikaga Takauji" in ''Encyclopædia Britannica, The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. ...

designated it as the official Ankoku-ji temple dedicated to the memory of the dead of the

Genkō War The , also known as the , was a civil war fought in Japan between the Emperor Go-Daigo and the Kamakura Shogunate from 1331 to 1333. The Genkō War was named after Genkō, the Japanese era corresponding to the period of 1331 to 1334 when the wa ...

of 1331-3 for

Bitchū Province was a province of Japan on the Inland Sea side of western Honshū, in what is today western Okayama Prefecture. It was sometimes called , with Bizen and Bingo Provinces; those three provinces were settled in the late 7th Century, dividing form ...

. The priest who came to restore the temple and to convert it to a Zen establishment was , from

Hangzhou Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...

Yuan China The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was ...

. During the Eishō era (1504-1521), the lord of

Bitchū Matsuyama Castle , also known as , is a Japanese castle located in the city of Takahashi, Okayama, Takahashi, Okayama Prefecture, in the San'yō region of Japan. Along with having one of only twelve remaining original ''tenshu'' (main keeps) in the country, Bi ...

, UenoYorihisa, took the tonsure at this temple, and after his death it was renamed for him, using the ''

kanbun ''Kanbun'' ( 'Han Chinese, Han writing') is a system for writing Literary Chinese used in Japan from the Nara period until the 20th century. Much of Japanese literature was written in this style and it was the general writing style for offici ...

'' reading of the ''

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

'' "頼久", to become Raikyū-ji. His grave is at the temple. The temple also has the graves of three generations of the Bitchū Mimura clan]

Mimura Iechika (1517 – February 24, 1566) was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the Sengoku period. The son of Mimura Munechika, he was the lord of Matsuyama Castle, in Bitchū Province. As the influence of the Hosokawa was decreasing in the province, he joined wit ...

, who was assassinated by

Ukita Naoie was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the Sengoku period. He was born in Bizen Province, to Ukita Okiie, a local samurai leader and head of the Ukita clan. He has historical reputation as one of , a nickname which he shared with Matsunaga Hisahide a ...

in 1566, his son Mimura Motochika, who committed ''

seppuku , also known as , is a form of Japanese ritualistic suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honor, but was also practiced by other Japanese people during the Shōwa era (particularly officers near ...

'' after his defeat by the Mōri-Ukita coalition in 1575, and his son Shobōshi-maru, who was put to death by Kobayakawa Takakage. The temple was also destroyed during this war in 1575. Although rebuilt, it was completely destroyed again by fire in 1839, during which time most of its records were lost. After the

Battle of Sekigahara The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: ; Kyūjitai: , Hepburn romanization: ''Sekigahara no Tatakai'') was an important battle in Japan which occurred on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) in what is now Gifu Prefecture, ...

in 1600,

Tokugawa Ieyasu Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Gr ...

assigned Kobori Masatsugu as ''

daikan ''Daikan'' (代官) was an official in ancient Japan that acted on behalf of a ruling monarch or a lord at the post they had been appointed to. Since the Middle Ages, ''daikan'' were in charge of their territory and territorial tax collection. In ...

'' to administer confiscated easternmost part of the Mōri territory in Bitchū. Since this was ''

tenryō The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil war ...

'' territory, although the ''

kokudaka refers to a system for determining land value for taxation purposes under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo-period Japan, and expressing this value in terms of ''koku'' of rice. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Koku"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 5 ...

'' was 14,000 ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. One koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about of rice. It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1,000 gō. One ''gō'' is the traditional volume of a single serving of rice (before co ...

'', he was not regarded as a ''

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 no ...

''. After his death in 1604 son Kobori Masakazu (better known as

Kobori Enshū was a Japanese aristocrat, garden designer, painter, poet, and tea master during the reign of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Biography His personal name was Masakazu (政一). In 1604, he received as inheritance a 12,000-''koku'' fief in Ōmi Province at K ...

) inherited the estate. At this time, Bitchū Matsuyama Castle was in ruins, so Masakazu conducted government affairs at Raikyū-ji until the caste reconstruction was completed in 1619. The garden at Raikyū-ji was designed and completed during this period. The garden combines elements of a

dry garden The or Japanese rock garden, often called a Zen garden, is a distinctive style of Japanese garden. It creates a miniature stylized landscape through carefully composed arrangements of rocks, water features, moss, pruned trees and bushes, and us ...

with

borrowed scenery Borrowed scenery (; Japanese language, Japanese: ; Chinese language, Chinese: ) is the principle of "incorporating background landscape into the composition of a garden" found in traditional East Asian garden design. The term borrowing of scenery ...

of neighboring hills. The garden is also known as Tsurukame GardenMansfield, Stephen
Bicchu-Matsuyama. Where conflict meets contemplation
Japan Times. 30 October 2001. Sourced 7 April 2008. on account of the two stone islands in the garden named "Crane" and "Tortoise" island respectively. Since it was completed in 1609, the abbots of the temple have maintained the garden in its original form. The temple is located approximately 15 minus on foot from Bitchū Takahashi Station.

Gallery

220101 Raikyuji Takahashi Okayama pref Japan08s3.jpg, Gardens 220101 Raikyuji Takahashi Okayama pref Japan10s3.jpg, View from the Shoin Raikyuji 20180502 111143.jpg, View from the Shoin 220101 Raikyuji Takahashi Okayama pref Japan07s3.jpg, Shoin on the left Raikyuji 20180502 112529.jpg, Crane and Turtle stones Raikyuji 20180502 105917.jpg, Stone lantern Raikyuji 20180502 110437.jpg, Pond on north side of Shōin. Main Hall on the left

References

External links

Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Raikyu-ji Buddhist temples in Okayama Prefecture Rinzai temples Bitchū Province Takahashi, Okayama Gardens in Okayama Prefecture Places of Scenic Beauty

History

Gallery

See also

References

External links