Joruri-ji

Joruri-ji is a temple in Kamo-cho, Kizugawa, Kyoto Prefecture. Because nine statues of Amida Nyorai stand in a row in its Main Hall, it is also called Kutai-ji, "the temple of nine statues." According to the temple's founding legend, it began in the Nara period when the monk Gyoki built it on the orders of Emperor Shomu. On the other hand, an old record kept by the temple (an Important Cultural Property) says that it was founded in 1047 by a monk from Taima who enshrined a statue of Yakushi Nyorai there. The temple's name comes from Yakushi Ruriko Nyorai, the lord of the Eastern Pure Land of Joruri.

The grounds are laid out around a Pure Land style garden that tries to recreate the Pure Land paradise on earth. The Three-Story Pagoda stands to the east of the pond and the Main Hall to the west, facing each other across the water. East is the direction of the rising sun and west the direction of the setting sun, and the pond is explained as representing the sea that separates this world from the next. The garden and its pond were made in 1150, excavated in 1976, and then restored. On the spring and autumn equinoxes, the sun is said to rise from the direction of the pagoda and set directly behind the Main Hall.

The Main Hall, a National Treasure, dates from the late Heian period. It is a long, low building eleven bays wide and four bays deep, with a hip roof covered in hongawara tiles. Inside, nine seated statues of Amida Nyorai (National Treasures) stand side by side, and the front of the hall has as many doors as there are statues. According to the Japan Tourism Agency's explanation, the hall was completed in 1107 and moved to its present site in 1157. In the 12th century many halls housing nine Amida statues were built at the request of nobles and the imperial family, but this is said to be the only one where both the hall and its statues survive. The largest statue, in the center, is thought to have been made first in the late 11th century, and the other eight in the early 12th century.

The Three-Story Pagoda on the east shore of the pond is also a National Treasure. It is a three-bay, three-story pagoda from the late Heian period with a cypress-bark roof. It was originally built in Kyoto and was taken apart and moved here in 1178. The first story enshrines a 12th-century seated statue of Yakushi Nyorai (an Important Cultural Property), and the Buddhist paintings on its walls are thought to have been painted during repairs in the late Kamakura period. The Main Hall also holds statues of the Four Heavenly Kings, which are National Treasures, and the doors of the shrine holding the hidden standing statue of Kichijoten (an Important Cultural Property) are opened only at New Year, in spring and in autumn.

A good way to visit is to walk around the pond, looking across the water at the Main Hall on the west side and the pagoda on the east. The inside of the pagoda is open only on the 8th of each month, the first three days of the New Year and the middle day of the equinox weeks, and only in fine weather. Japanese andromeda (asebi) blooms from early to mid-March, and the Kyoto Prefecture tourism page also introduces the autumn leaves. Entry to the Main Hall closes 30 minutes before the temple closes, so allow plenty of time.