Myokoji Temple Imperial Envoy Gate

The One Building That Outlived the Monastery

Myokoji Chokushimon (妙興寺勅使門, also written Myōkō-ji Chokushi-mon), the Imperial Envoy Gate of Myokoji in Daiwa-cho, Ichinomiya City, Aichi Prefecture, is a four-legged gate built in 1366, in the early Muromachi period, and designated an Important Cultural Property on 15 April 1920. It stands on the main approach of Myoko Hoon Zenji, a Rinzai temple of the Myoshinji line, and it is the oldest building in Ichinomiya.

That last fact carries more weight than it first appears to. Myokoji was one of the great Zen establishments of Owari province, with a full monastic complex laid out along a central axis. In 1890 a fire took the main halls. The abbot's quarters were rebuilt in 1893 and the kitchen quarters in 1897, both in the architecture of their own day. Of the fourteenth-century monastery, this gate is what is left.

A Zen house on the Northern Court's side

The temple was opened in 1348 by the monk Messhu Soko, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs records the gate itself as a work of 1366. Aichi Prefecture's tourism authority notes that the monastic complex was completed the year before, in 1365, which places the gate at the finishing stage of a large building campaign rather than at its start.

The era names in those dates are worth pausing over. Japan in the 1360s had two rival imperial courts, each with its own calendar. Jowa and Joji, the eras used above, belong to the Northern Court backed by the Ashikaga shoguns. Myokoji was a Northern Court stronghold in Owari, an Ashikaga prayer temple, and a temple of imperial vow under Emperor Go-Kogon. The dating convention and the politics are the same fact stated twice.

Why the Gate Is Nationally Designated

Two arguments support the designation, one about the building and one about what surrounds it.

The building itself is a shikyakumon, a four-legged gate: one bay wide with a single doorway, two main pillars carrying the ridge, and four subsidiary pillars, two front and two rear, giving the type its name. A gabled roof runs across the top. Gates of this form were standard for the formal entrances of medieval Zen monasteries, and surviving fourteenth-century examples are not common. Ichinomiya City Museum's catalogue entry describes the combination that makes this one worth study: the sweep of the eaves and the white plaster panels read as refined, while the timber is cut heavy enough to feel forceful rather than delicate.

The second argument is the loss around it. When a monastery burns, dating evidence for the whole complex usually goes with it. A single original gate anchors what the fourteenth-century layout looked like at Myokoji, and it does so on its original approach rather than as a relocated fragment. The designation was made on 15 April 1920, register number 00736.

The plaque above the doorway

Hanging on the gate is an imperial plaque reading Kokuchu Muso Zensatsu, roughly "a Zen temple without equal in the realm," granted by Emperor Go-Kogon in 1353. The date is thirteen years earlier than the gate. Ichinomiya City Museum and Aichi Prefecture both give 1353 for the plaque and 1366 for the structure, which means the honor came to the temple first and was later installed on the gate built to receive it. Reading the two dates together tells you the sequence: the reputation, then the architecture to match.

What to Look For on a Visit

Approach from the outer gate and walk in along the axis. The Chokushimon comes second in the sequence, before the dragon pond, the triple gate, and the Buddha hall. It is not the largest structure you will pass, and it is easy to walk through without stopping, which would be a mistake.

Look up at the eave line first. The curve is shallow but not flat, and it is the element that gives the gate its lightness. Then look at the pillars and the beams. The proportions are generous, the sections thick, and the contrast between those two readings, delicate above and solid below, is the thing to hold on to.

The roof is now laid with sangawara, the interlocking pantile that became common in Japan only from the late seventeenth century onward. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records the roofing as such, and it tells you plainly that this covering is a later replacement rather than the fourteenth-century original, as the tile type did not yet exist when the gate was built. Reroofing is normal in the life of a Japanese wooden building; the frame beneath is the part that has stood since 1366.

The plaque is above the doorway. Its six characters read right to left, in the older direction.

Practical notes

The grounds of Myokoji are open for walking during daylight hours, with no ticket gate and no fixed admission, and Ichinomiya's official tourism site describes the wooded precinct as one of the city's quieter places for autumn color. The precinct is a prefecturally designated historic site. The gate can be photographed from the approach without difficulty; the temple remains an active training monastery, so it is worth keeping voices down and staying off the parts of the grounds marked private.

Myokoji also opens seated meditation to visitors, ordinarily on the 1st and the 15th of each month from around six in the evening until around nine, with 1 January and 15 August excepted. Dates shift with the season, so check before making the trip for that purpose alone.

Getting there is straightforward: Myokoji Station on the Meitetsu Nagoya Main Line is about seven minutes on foot, and Ichinomiya City Museum stands next door, which makes an easy pairing of an hour or two. By car it is roughly ten minutes from the Ichinomiya interchange on the Meishin Expressway.