Chūson-ji Temple: A Northern Fujiwara Buddhist Centre in Japan
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- High
- Country
- Japan
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Unclassified
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Monastery
On this page12 sections
History
Chūson-ji Temple is a Tendai Buddhist temple in Hiraizumi, Japan, developed under the patronage of the Northern Fujiwara clan in the early twelfth-century late Heian period. Tendai is a major Japanese Buddhist tradition based on the teachings of the Chinese Tiantai school. Chūson-ji serves as the tradition’s leading temple in the Tōhoku region, and its traditional mountain name is Kanzan. Its principal image is Shaka Nyōrai, the Japanese name for Shakyamuni Buddha.
Traditional Origins and Northern Fujiwara Foundation
Temple tradition places Chūson-ji’s origin in 850, when Ennin, also known as Jikaku Daishi and the third chief abbot of the Tendai sect, established Kanzan Kōdai-juin. The same tradition states that Emperor Seiwa gave the temple the name Chūson-ji in 859. This early foundation cannot be confirmed by surviving documentary or archaeological evidence.
The historically substantive foundation is generally placed in the early twelfth century. Fujiwara no Kiyohira began the practical foundation or revival of Chūson-ji in 1105, when he was 50 years old. The first buildings were also called Saishoin, although their architectural form is unknown. Kiyohira had earlier established a temple known as Tahō-ji, where Shaka Nyōrai and Tahō Nyōrai were enshrined. Tahō Nyōrai is Prabhutaratna, the Buddha who appears with Shakyamuni in the Lotus Sutra.
Kiyohira founded the Northern Fujiwara clan. The Former Nine Years’ War and the Latter Three Years’ War, eleventh-century conflicts in northern Japan involving regional military families and the imperial government, had brought warfare and loss to the region. After these conflicts, Kiyohira controlled territory corresponding roughly to present-day Iwate. He adopted his father’s Fujiwara surname, became a Mutsu military commissioner in 1089, and moved his residence from Toyotadate in present-day Ōshū to Hiraizumi around 1094.
His father, wife, and children had died during the violence surrounding his earlier life. Chūson-ji therefore served a religious purpose connected with peace, prayers for those killed in the conflicts, and Kiyohira’s hope for rebirth in paradise. Temple construction, the making of Buddhist images, and the copying of scriptures were also ways for him to gain religious merit.
Hiraizumi under the Northern Fujiwara
Under Kiyohira and the three leaders who followed him, Motohira, Hidehira, and Yasuhira, Hiraizumi developed a flourishing courtly culture for approximately a century. Motohira continued Kiyohira’s temple-building program and founded nearby Mōtsū-ji. Hidehira completed Mōtsū-ji and commissioned Muryōkō-in.
A dedication prayer dated March 24, 1126, describes the establishment of a large complex intended to protect the state. It was once understood as an account of Chūson-ji’s dedication, but the surviving copies do not preserve the original document, and the text does not name Chūson-ji. Its descriptions of buildings, a bridge, and ponds correspond instead to the former complex of Mōtsū-ji. The document is also regarded as a draft prepared before the change of era on January 22.
The earliest secure appearance of the name Chūson-ji is generally associated with a poem and note by the poet Saigyō, who visited the area between 1142 and 1144. An earlier sutra-repository document from 1126 also contains the name, although its authenticity is questioned. Chūson has been interpreted either as a reference to the temple’s position at the centre of Ōshū or as a phrase derived from the Lotus Sutra. The latter explanation, proposed by former chief abbot Tada Atsutaka, remains disputed.
Survival after 1189
The Northern Fujiwara clan was destroyed by the forces of Minamoto no Yoritomo in 1189. Chūson-ji nevertheless survived under Yoritomo’s protection as a temple founded through the religious patronage of the Retired Emperor Toba. A temple inventory from this period, quoted in the Azuma Kagami, records the surviving complex and provides a reliable account of its condition at that time.
By 1210, Chūson-ji had become dilapidated despite Yoritomo’s earlier order that the temples of Hiraizumi be restored to the condition associated with Motohira’s time. The monks appealed to the Kamakura government, and Ōe no Hiromoto ordered the estate stewards to resume sending the temple’s customary tax revenues.
A major fire in 1337 destroyed almost all of Chūson-ji’s buildings except the Konjikidō. More than 3,000 cultural properties nevertheless survived, including objects and structures later recognized as National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties.
Protection, Study, and Recognition
During the Edo period, Chūson-ji lay within the Sendai Domain and received protection from the Date clan, which supported repairs and new construction. Sengaku-in in Sendai became its administrative subsidiary temple in 1654, and Chūson-ji became a subsidiary temple of Kan’eiji in Edo in 1665. When Matsuo Bashō visited in 1689, he lamented the temple’s increasingly ruined condition.
The main hall was rebuilt in 1909. Scholarly examination of the remains within the Konjikidō’s altars followed in 1950. In 1958, Chūson-ji received the title of Tendai Tōhoku Head Temple and a branch of the Eternal Flame of the Dharma from Enryaku-ji, the Tendai headquarters on Mount Hiei.
The Konjikidō was dismantled and repaired between 1962 and 1968, restoring much of its original brilliance. Seeds found in the container holding Yasuhira’s head produced the Chūson-ji Lotus. It flowered in 1998 and was later planted within the temple precinct. Chūson-ji was designated a Special Historic Site of Japan in 1979 and became a component property of the UNESCO World Heritage site Hiraizumi, Temples, Gardens and Archaeological Sites Representing the Buddhist Pure Land, on June 26, 2011.
Chūson-ji is also an extra pilgrimage station of the Ōshū Thirty-Three Kannon pilgrimage and forms part of the Four Temples Circuit with Mōtsū-ji in Hiraizumi, Zuigan-ji in Matsushima, and Risshaku-ji in Yamagata.
Remains
The temple buildings are distributed across a hill reached by the Riku’u Highway and the Tsukimizaka approach. The precinct contains the main temple compound and 17 subsidiary temple compounds, including Daitoku-in, Jizō-in, Rurikō-in, Ganjōju-in, Kongō-in, Shakuzen-in, Yakujūō-in, Shinjū-in, Daichōju-in, Konshiki-in, Shakuson-in, Kannon-in, Jōju-in, Rishō-in, Enkyō-in, and Enjō-in. Four subsidiary compounds lie along the ordinary road south of the Konjikidō, while Daitoku-in is separated to the south.
The Golden Hall
The Konjikidō, or Golden Hall, was completed in 1124, according to an inscription on its ridge timber. It was built as Kiyohira’s mausoleum. The small square structure measures approximately 5.5 metres on each side and rises about 8 metres high. Gold leaf covers both its exterior and interior, while mother-of-pearl inlay, woodwork, metalwork, lacquerwork, and painting combine to create a richly decorated late-Heian-period monument.
Three altars inside the hall are associated with the first three Northern Fujiwara leaders. Each originally held a seated Amida Nyōrai surrounded by standing Kannon Bosatsu and Seishi Bosatsu, six Jizō Bosatsu, and two Niten figures. One of the Niten figures is now missing. The altar arrangement contains the mummified remains of Kiyohira, Motohira, and Hidehira, as well as Yasuhira’s severed head. Examination in 1950 placed Kiyohira beneath the central altar, Motohira beneath the northwest altar, and Hidehira beneath the southwest altar beside a casket containing Yasuhira’s head.
The hall originally stood in the open air. A wooden protective structure was added in 1288, and the building is now enclosed within a concrete structure constructed in 1965. It is viewed through thick acrylic glass from the front and sides. Maki-e, a Japanese lacquer technique that applies powdered metal to wet lacquer, was used in the restoration of the interior lacquerwork, assisted by the lacquer artist Shōgyo Ōba in 1964.
Temple Buildings and Former Complex
Sutra Repository
The sutra repository is identified as the other surviving building from the original Chūson-ji complex. Its associated ritual furnishings form part of the temple’s protected cultural-property collection. The precinct also contains the rebuilt main hall and a Noh stage.
Medieval Halls and Pagodas
The medieval complex contained more than 40 halls and pagodas and more than 300 monks’ residences. The Tahō-ji housed images of Shaka Nyōrai and Tahō Nyōrai. The Shakadō contained one hundred images of Shaka Nyōrai, while the Ryōkaidō housed wooden images of the Buddhas of the Two-World Mandala. A mandala is a structured sacred diagram representing Buddhist cosmology; the Two-World Mandala combines the Womb Realm and Diamond Realm mandalas. The Nidai-dō, also called Daichōju-in, contained a three-jō-high image of Amida Nyōrai and nine sixteen-foot images of Amida Nyōrai.
Artworks, Furnishings, and Documentary Objects
The Konjikidō’s interior images, canopy, ritual furnishings, and fittings include wooden altar platforms, mother-of-pearl-inlaid tables, bell stands, a ritual bell decorated with a peacock, gilt-bronze banner finials, and gilt-bronze ornamental pendants. The hall, its images, and its furnishings are recognized as National Treasures. A mother-of-pearl-inlaid octagonal altar, a gold-and-silver reliquary altar, and the coffins and funerary goods placed within the altars are also associated with the collection.
Other surviving cultural properties include the Chūson-ji Sutra Repository, a wooden Manjushri sculpture riding a lion with four attendant figures, manuscripts of the Chūson-ji Dedication Prayer, the Chūson-ji documentary archive, and two scrolls depicting the illustrated map of the Honeji Village estate. A set of Noh masks includes two old-man masks, a young-woman mask with an inscription dated 1291, and an old-woman mask.
The Chūson-ji Lotus
The Chūson-ji Lotus grows within the temple precinct from seeds recovered from Yasuhira’s funerary container. Its petals are comparatively narrow and thin, preserving a botanical result associated with the remains of the Northern Fujiwara mausoleum.
