Goryū Sonryū-in Temple: Head Temple of Shugendō in Kurashiki
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.1
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Japan
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- Ashikaga shogunate, Kamakura shogunate, Tokugawa
- Site type
- Religious
On this page12 sections
History
Goryū Sonryū-in Temple in Japan is a Shugendō temple in Hayashi, Kurashiki, Okayama, and the head temple of a Shugendō denomination, a mountain-centered religious tradition combining ascetic practice, Buddhist teachings, and elements of indigenous Japanese worship. Its principal image is the Eleven-Headed Kannon. Tradition places its foundation in 701, when five senior disciples of En no Ozunu, the semi-legendary ascetic regarded as the founder of Shugendō, carried the sacred object of Kumano Hongū while wandering for three years before receiving a divine revelation in March 701.
Foundation and the New Kumano complex
Following the revelation, the five disciples transferred Kumano Hongū to the site of present-day Kumano Shrine and established five temples: Goryū Sonryū-in, Daihō-in, Kentoku-in, Hō-on-in, and Denpō-in. Goryū Sonryū-in served as the central temple. In 740, Emperor Shōmu donated the entire Kojima area as shrine estate. An eighth-century emperor known for supporting major Buddhist institutions, Shōmu thereby connected the developing religious center with imperial patronage.
In 761, buildings modeled on those of Kumano in Kishū were established, along with additional temples and shrines at Kimi and Yamamura. Together, these institutions formed the New Kumano Three Mountains. The temple and Kumano Shrine flourished as a combined Buddhist and Shinto complex, reflecting shinbutsu-shūgō, the historical combination of Buddhist and indigenous Japanese religious practices and institutions. From the middle of the Heian period onward, however, the institution entered a period of decline.
Medieval revival and destruction
The complex became connected with the imperial family during the Jōkyū War of 1221, the conflict in which Emperor Go-Toba challenged the Kamakura shogunate and was defeated and exiled to the Oki Islands. Prince Kakujin, a son of Go-Toba and chief administrator of Miidera temple, fled to the area during the war. Prince Yorihito, Go-Toba’s fourth son, was later exiled to Kojima after his father’s defeat.
Yorihito revived the declining five temples and the Twelve Shrines of Kumano, a group of shrines associated with the Kumano religious complex. The institutions prospered until the Nanboku-chō period, the fourteenth-century conflict between rival Northern and Southern imperial courts. After that period, the complex declined again, and Goryū Sonryū-in became the only surviving member of the original five temples. Its successive chief abbots are traditionally regarded as descendants of Prince Yorihito.
Kojima Takanori, a fourteenth-century samurai traditionally remembered for loyalty to Emperor Go-Daigo and the Southern Court, is commemorated at the Kojima Takanori Shrine within the precincts. In 1469, during the Ōnin War, a fifteenth-century conflict that brought widespread fighting among rival military factions, troops centered on Enkai of Kakuō-in attacked and burned the New Kumano complex. The destruction was almost complete. The mausoleum and sutra hall associated with Emperor Go-Toba’s memorial tower were also lost in the fire.
Religious reorganization and modern preservation
Tradition holds that the temple originally stood about 400 meters north of its present position, beside the north side of Shinjō-in and adjacent to Kumano Shrine. Its present institutional location is beside the north side of Gounai Elementary School, while the three-story pagoda and bell tower remain beside the grounds of Kumano Shrine.
The Meiji government’s policy of separating Buddhism and Shinto made the Twelve Shrines of Kumano into the independent Kumano Shrine and separated them from Goryū Sonryū-in. After Shugendō was abolished in 1872, the temple belonged to the Jimon branch of the Tendai Buddhist school. It became independent from Tendai after the end of the Pacific War and resumed its status as the head temple of Shugendō.
The stone memorial pagoda for Emperor Go-Toba was designated a National Important Cultural Property in 1956. The three-story pagoda, bell, Eleven-Headed Kannon statue, and short sword hold Okayama Prefectural Important Cultural Property designations dating from 1956 to 1974. In September 2003, an accidental fire destroyed the Nagatoko, an ascetic lodging building at Kumano Shrine that had been built in 1768 and also served as the shrine’s worship hall. The building was reconstructed in October 2007.
Remains
The surviving remains are distributed between the temple’s present institutional site and the grounds beside Kumano Shrine. They include the temple’s wooden image of Eleven-Headed Kannon, a stone memorial pagoda south of the shrine, a nineteenth-century three-story pagoda, a fifteenth-century bell in its bell tower, and a memorial carriage housed in Goryu Hall. These features preserve parts of the religious complex’s Buddhist, Shinto, commemorative, and Shugendō associations.
Structures beside Kumano Shrine
Memorial Tower of Emperor Go-Toba
South of Kumano Shrine stands the stone memorial tower traditionally known as the Memorial Tower of Emperor Go-Toba. It is a hōtō, a Buddhist memorial pagoda with a cylindrical body and a pyramidal roof. Tradition says that Princes Yorihito and Kakujin erected it in 1240 for the first-anniversary memorial service of Go-Toba, who had died the previous year. Fragments of the emperor’s remains were traditionally placed inside. A mausoleum and sutra hall once stood with the tower, but both were destroyed in the 1469 fire.
Three-story pagoda
The three-story pagoda was built in 1820. It has a tiled roof, stands 21.5 meters high, and is immediately south of and adjacent to the grounds of Kumano Shrine. Its survival preserves a substantial Buddhist architectural feature from the period before the Meiji separation of Buddhism and Shinto. The pagoda is designated an Okayama Prefectural Important Cultural Property.
Bell and bell tower
A bell cast in 1457 hangs in a bell tower adjacent to the south side of Kumano Shrine. Its inscription states that it was made at the behest of its sponsor. The bell is 129.4 centimeters high, with a mouth diameter of 70.0 centimeters, and is designated an Okayama Prefectural Important Cultural Property.
Temple images and commemorative objects
Eleven-Headed Kannon
The temple’s principal image is a wooden standing statue of Eleven-Headed Kannon. The statue is traditionally dated to the Kamakura period or later and is designated an Okayama Prefectural Important Cultural Property. It remains the central sacred image of Goryū Sonryū-in.
Carriage of Okubo Toshimichi
Goryu Hall, a building attached to the main hall, houses the horse-drawn carriage that was carrying Okubo Toshimichi when he was assassinated in 1878. The Okubo family donated the carriage for perpetual memorial observances. It is among the objects linking the temple’s religious precinct with a later episode in Japanese political history.
