Chion-in

Chion-in is the head temple of the Jodo school of Buddhism, its many halls spread across the foot of Mount Kacho in Kyoto's Higashiyama hills. Honen, who founded the Jodo school, came down from Mount Hiei and settled in a hermitage at Yoshimizu, where he taught the nembutsu to anyone who visited. That spot lies near today's Miedo Hall. Honen died in 1212 at the age of 80, and in 1234 his disciple Genchi restored his grave, built a Buddha hall and a portrait hall, and named the temple Chion-kyoin Otani-dera. The name Chion-in comes from the Chion-ko, gatherings his disciples held to repay their debt of gratitude to Honen.

The temple's present scale grew out of its ties to the Tokugawa family. In 1603 Tokugawa Ieyasu made Chion-in his family's temple in perpetuity and, to pray for his late mother, enlarged the grounds to roughly their present size. In a fire in 1633, only the Sanmon Gate and the sutra repository survived. In 2002 the Sanmon Gate and the Miedo Hall were designated National Treasures, two buildings in all.

The Sanmon Gate was built in 1621 on the order of the second shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada. It is a two-story double-roofed gate, five bays wide with three doorways, 24 meters high and 50 meters across, roofed with about 70,000 tiles, and ranks among the largest wooden gates in Japan. Temple gates are usually written with characters meaning mountain gate, but Chion-in uses the characters for three gates, standing for three states of mind that lead to enlightenment. The upper story is a Buddha hall housing a crowned Shakyamuni and the Sixteen Arhats, though the interior is closed to the public. The plaque reading Kachozan on the outside of the gate is larger than two tatami mats.

The Miedo Hall enshrines the portrait statue of Honen and was built in 1639 by the third shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu. The hall is 45 meters wide and 35 meters deep, wrapped by an outer veranda 3 meters wide. A major restoration marking the 800th memorial of Honen's death, including the complete re-roofing of its tiles, took about nine years and was finished in 2020. Look for the details: the forgotten umbrella under the eaves at the upper right of the front, the unlaid tiles left in the middle of the main ridge, and the door bolts of the great doors shaped like cicadas and turtles.

The grounds also hold the Great Bell Tower, whose bell is 3.3 meters tall and weighs about 70 tons. It is struck only during the Gyoki memorial service in April and on New Year's Eve, when a team of 17 people rings it. Two gardens, Yuzen-en and the Hojo Garden, are also open to visitors, and a free shuttle bus runs from the Sanmon Gate to the front of the Miedo Hall. Seeing the gate and the hall one after the other gives a clear sense of the scale of the complex the shoguns built in the Early Edo period.