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

Gifu is a Cities of Japan, city located in the south-central portion of Gifu Prefecture, Japan, and serves as the prefectural capital. The city has played an important role in Japan's history because of its location in the middle of the country. Durin ...

Gifu Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Gifu Prefecture has a population of 1,910,511 () and has a geographic area of . Gifu Prefecture borders Toyama Prefecture to the north; Ishikawa Prefecture ...

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 ...

. The temple has strong ties to both

Saitō Dōsan , also known as Saitō Toshimasa (斎藤利政), was a Japanese samurai lord and daimyo during the Sengoku period.Louis-Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Saitō Dōsan"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 809. He was also known as the f ...

and

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. He is sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demo ...

.Gifu Sightseeing Guide: Sōfuku-ji
Gifu Prefecture Tourist Federation. Access June 10, 2008. Gifu's Sōfuku-ji is famed throughout Japan for both the number of monks it produces and for its "Blood Ceiling".''Gifu City Walking Map''. Gifu Lively City Public Corporation, 2007. Shortly after its founding, it was also known as Kōsai-ji (弘済寺), but that name is no longer used. It is also one of the Mino Thirty-three Kannon.

History

Sōfuku-ji was originally built during 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 ...

. However, because it suffered from much deterioration, Saitō Toshimasa moved and rebuilt the temple in 1511.Sōfuku-ji
. Sōfuku-ji. Accessed September 21, 2007. In 1517, he gave it its current name. According to other stories, though, it was originally built in 1469, by Toki Shigeyori and Saitō Nagahiro, and it was officially opened in 1493. When Oda Nobunaga moved to Gifu in 1567, he made Sōfuku-ji the

family temple An ancestral shrine, hall or temple ( or , ; Chữ Hán: ; ), also called lineage temple, is a temple dedicated to deified ancestors and progenitors of surname lineages or families in the Chinese tradition. Ancestral temples are closely link ...

of the

Oda clan The is a Japanese samurai family who were daimyo and an important political force in the unification of Japan in the mid-16th century. Though they reached the peak of their power under Oda Nobunaga and fell soon after, several branches of the ...

after mourning for

Kitsuno was a Japanese woman from the Sengoku period to the Azuchi–Momoyama period. She was a concubine of Oda Nobunaga, a Sengoku Daimyo, Daimyō of the Owari Province. Her posthumous Buddhist name is . Name The name of this woman, who was Nobunag ...

, Nobunaga's concubine and the birth mother of his heir, Nobutada.Sofuku-ji
. Gifu City Convention and Visitors Bureau. Accessed September 21, 2007. After Nobunaga and Nobutada died during the

Incident at Honnō-ji The Incident Command System (ICS) is a standardized approach to the command, control, and coordination of emergency response providing a common hierarchy within which responders from multiple agencies can be effective. ICS was initially develope ...

in 1582, Kyōun'in, Nobunaga's concubine and de facto legal wife at that time, decided that Sōfuku-ji would be their memorial site and built their mausoleum and tomb. She then placed

ihai A spirit tablet, memorial tablet, or ancestral tablet is a placard that people used to designate the seat of a deity or past ancestor as well as to enclose it. The name of the deity or the past ancestor is usually inscribed onto the tablet. Wit ...

and belongings of them in the temple. In 1600, when

Oda Hidenobu , the son of Oda Nobutada, was a samurai who lived during the Azuchi-Momoyama period in the late-16th century. He was a convert to Catholicism. His childhood name was Sanbōshi (三法師). Succession dispute When Oda Nobutada and Oda Nobuna ...

was responding to

Ishida Mitsunari was a Japanese samurai and military commander of the late Sengoku period of Japan. He is probably best remembered as the commander of the Western army in the Battle of Sekigahara following the Azuchi–Momoyama period of the 16th century. He ...

's call for assistance,

Fukushima Masanori was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the late Sengoku period to early Edo period and served as the lord of the Hiroshima Domain. A retainer of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he fought in the Battle of Shizugatake in 1583 and soon became known as one of the ...

and

Ikeda Terumasa was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the early Edo period. His court title was ''Kokushi (officials), Musashi no Kami''. Terumasa was also known by the nickname ''saigoku no shōgun'', or, "The ''Shōgun'' of Western Japan". Terumasa fought in many ...

sieged the castle and destroyed it during the

Battle of Gifu Castle The took place in September 1600 that led to the destruction of Gifu Castle in Gifu, Gifu, Gifu, Mino Province (modern-day Gifu Prefecture), Japan. The battle served as a prelude to the Battle of Sekigahara the following month. It pitted Oda Hid ...

. Hidenobu's vassals died during this siege and, after the destruction of the castle, the blood-stained floor of the castles main tower was used to create the new "Blood Ceiling" in the temple. During the

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 ...

, the temple received much support from the government and, as a result, prospered. It also became a prayer place for the

Arisugawa-no-miya The was one of the shinnōke, branches of the Imperial Family of Japan which were, until 1947, eligible to succeed to the Chrysanthemum Throne in the event that the main line should die out. History The Arisugawa-no-miya house was founded by Pr ...

. Also,

Tokugawa Iemitsu was the third ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate, Tokugawa dynasty. He was the eldest son of Tokugawa Hidetada with Oeyo, and the grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Lady Kasuga was his wet nurse, who acted as his political adviser and was at the ...

supported this temple immensely because his wet nurse as a child,

Lady Kasuga was a Japanese noble lady and politician from a prominent Japanese samurai family of the Azuchi–Momoyama and Edo periods. Born Saitō Fuku (斉藤福), she was a daughter of Saitō Toshimitsu (who was a retainer of Akechi Mitsuhide). She w ...

, who was the daughter of Saitō Toshimitsu, a relative of Dōsan.

References

Images

File:崇福寺 (岐阜市)-山門から境内を望むsoufukuji003.jpg File:崇福寺 (岐阜市)-境内Soufukuji005.jpg File:崇福寺 (岐阜市)-鐘楼soufukuji007.jpg File:崇福寺 (岐阜市)-中門 (勅使門)Soufukuji013.jpg File:崇福寺 (岐阜市)-本堂前庭石庭Soufukuji017.jpg File:崇福寺 (岐阜市)-本堂soufukuji020.jpg File:崇福寺 (岐阜市)-本堂血天井Soufukuji026.jpg File:崇福寺 (岐阜市)-本堂内部soufukuji028.jpg File:崇福寺 (岐阜市)-本堂から石庭を望むsoufukuji021.jpg File:崇福寺 (岐阜市)-織田信長父子廟を望むsoufukuji039.jpg File:崇福寺 (岐阜市)-織田信長・信忠父子廟Soufukuji040.jpg File:崇福寺 (岐阜市)-信長、信忠父子の位牌堂Soufukuji044.jpg File:崇福寺 (岐阜市)-読経堂soufukuji042.jpg File:崇福寺 (岐阜市)-斎藤利匡一族の墓soufukuji047.jpg {{DEFAULTSORT:Sofuku-ji Gifu Buildings and structures in Gifu Buddhist temples in Gifu Prefecture