Renkeiji Temple Gate

Renkeiji Temple Great Gate

Renkei-ji stands in the Uedai district of Agui, a quiet town at the centre of the Chita Peninsula in Aichi. At the south-east corner of its grounds, facing east toward the main hall, rises the Omon, the temple's great gate.

It is a four-legged gate built in 1896, the twenty-ninth year of the Meiji era, with a gabled roof of formal hongawara tile and double eaves carried on closely spaced rafters. Renkei-ji belongs to the Otani branch of Shinshu Buddhism, the True Pure Land school.

Registered for a Dense, High-Quality Design

The gate was placed on the national register of Tangible Cultural Properties in 2013, together with the temple's main hall and earthen wall, for its contribution to the historic landscape of the district.

What sets it apart is the density of its bracketry. The main pillars are round columns and the bracing posts square with chamfered edges, all set on carved stone base plates. The eaves rest on close-packed bracket complexes, hira-mitsudo sets with projecting carved noses, filling the bays between the pillars rather than sitting only above them. The gable carries a double rainbow beam with a vase-shaped strut and curved brackets at its peak. For its scale and finish the gate is a work of high quality.

What to Look For

For a gate built at the end of the nineteenth century, the Omon is ambitious in scale and finish. Look up as you pass beneath it, at the coffered ceiling overhead, the ranked brackets, and the carved fist-shaped noses on the beam ends. Stone plinths under each post raise the timber clear of the ground.

The Uedai neighbourhood around the temple is linked to the children's author Niimi Nankichi, whose tale Gon, the Little Fox is set in this landscape of low hills, with the Yakachi River close by.