Zen’yō-ji Temple: A Nichiren Buddhist Temple on Miyake Island

History

Zen’yō-ji Temple is a Nichiren Buddhist temple in Japan, located in the Izu district of Miyake Village on Miyake Island. Traditionally founded in 1395, it was established when a local farmer converted his residence into a temple and invited a priest to serve as its founding abbot. Nichiren Buddhism is a Japanese tradition centered on the teachings of Nichiren, especially devotion to the Lotus Sutra. Zen’yō-ji is the only Nichiren temple on Miyake Island and has consequently served the religious needs of the island community for more than six centuries.

Foundation and religious affiliation

The temple’s mountain name is Chōkizan, and its principal object of worship is the Ten Worlds Mandala, which represents ten states or realms of existence and consciousness in Nichiren Buddhist practice. Its former head temple was Chōei-ji on Niijima. Zen’yō-ji belonged to the Dashi lineage, a network of clerical and institutional affiliations linking related Nichiren temples and priests. The abbots were formerly understood to have followed this affiliation through the fourteenth abbot.

The succession changed after the fifteenth abbot entered Zen’yō-ji from a central temple affiliated with Ikegami Honmonji in the Izu Peninsula. The temple then followed the Yanashima lineage, associated with the Nakadō Fuji-an branch. Zen’yō-ji also formerly held the rank of an ordinary monks’ temple, a status within Nichiren Buddhism’s earlier hierarchy. That head-temple and branch-temple system, which linked principal temples with subordinate institutions, was abolished in 1941, leaving such relationships as former affiliations.

Volcanic disruption and community service

Repeated eruptions of Mount Oyama repeatedly disrupted life on Miyake Island and limited the documented succession of Zen’yō-ji’s abbots to sixteen. At least thirteen major eruptions have been recorded. The temple also conducts memorial services for priests of the Nichiren Fuju-fuse movement whose graves are scattered across the island. This movement was a persecuted current within Nichiren Buddhism whose adherents rejected offerings exchanged with people outside their religious community.

The eruption of August 24, 1962, was accompanied by more than 2,000 felt earthquakes. More than 1,000 islanders were evacuated together to Tateyama in Chiba Prefecture, while the fifteenth abbot remained responsible for maintaining the temple during the crisis. In December 1964, he became Miyake Village’s third treasurer and supported village administration for more than three years alongside the third deputy mayor. He continued serving the local community until his death in January 1980.

The sixteenth abbot had arrived on Miyake Island in 1974 as a social-studies teacher at Miyake High School. He assumed leadership of Zen’yō-ji after the fifteenth abbot died. During the eruption of October 3, 1983, about 400 houses in Ako District were buried or burned, while the Izu district, where the temple stands, escaped damage.

The 2000 eruption and evacuation

A major crisis began with the northern Izu Islands earthquake swarm of June 26, 2000. A large eruption followed on August 1, and a pyroclastic flow occurred on August 29. A pyroclastic flow is a fast-moving cloud of hot volcanic gases, ash, and rock. The entire island began evacuating on September 2, and residents remained displaced for four years and five months.

During the 2000 to 2005 evacuation, the sixteenth abbot negotiated with the disaster-support department of the Nichiren administrative office as a key member of the Nichiren temples of the Izu Seven Islands. He also worked to repair Zen’yō-ji during severely restricted temporary returns to the island. These efforts helped keep the temple functioning. He returned to Miyake Island after the evacuation order was fully lifted on February 1, 2005.

Remains

The Zen’yō-ji precinct lies in the Izu district and contains the main hall, a separate hall dedicated to Banjin, and the temple’s principal object of worship, the Ten Worlds Mandala. Banjin is a protective deity honored in Nichiren Buddhist practice. Repairs to the temple buildings took place during the 2000 to 2005 evacuation, when access to the island was severely restricted.

Main precinct features

Main hall and Banjin hall

The principal buildings are the main hall and a separate hall dedicated to Banjin. The Ten Worlds Mandala is enshrined as the temple’s principal object of worship. Repairs carried out during the island’s long evacuation addressed these buildings and helped preserve the functioning temple precinct.

Grave of the first resident police officer

The grounds contain the grave of Miyake Island’s first resident police officer. Dispatched to the island in April 1893, he devoted himself to combating a typhoid epidemic and rescuing patients when the disease spread in 1897. He contracted typhoid himself and died in October of that year. His grave forms part of the temple grounds and preserves a local connection between Zen’yō-ji and the history of public service during the epidemic.

Ako detached precinct

A separate precinct in Ako District contains a Hokke Hall. This detached hall forms another part of Zen’yō-ji’s physical presence on Miyake Island, distinct from the main precinct in Izu.