Tokujuji Temple Memorial Tablet Hall

The Long Hall Behind the Main Hall

Tokujuji Temple Memorial Tablet Hall (徳授寺位牌堂, Tokujuji Ihaidō) is a hall built in 1934 against the rear of the main hall of Tokujuji, a Zen temple in the castle town of Inuyama City, Aichi Prefecture, and it was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on August 13, 2012.

From the front of the temple you can barely see it. Tokujuji Temple Memorial Tablet Hall attaches to the back of the main hall with its ridge running north to south. It measures 12.2 meters along the ridge and 5.7 meters across, a single-story timber structure with a tile roof and a floor area of 69 square meters.

The roof is not uniform. One end is Irimoya-zukuri, hipped and gabled; the other is Kirizuma-zukuri, plainly gabled. Both are covered in Sangawara-buki pantile. Two roof forms sit on one ridge because the space beneath is divided in two.

One Roof, Two Kinds of Remembrance

The interior of Tokujuji Temple Memorial Tablet Hall serves two purposes. The southern half is the ihaidō, the hall of memorial tablets. The northern half is the kaisandō, the founder's hall.

An ihaidō holds the memorial tablets of the families affiliated with the temple. Each wooden tablet carries a posthumous Buddhist name, and the tablets stack in ordered ranks along the walls. This is the room where the bond between a temple and the households it serves takes its most concrete form: a parishioner comes in, finds the family tablet, and puts their hands together. It is a working space, used continually.

A kaisandō honours the priest who founded the temple. In Zen temples it holds the founder's image or tablet, and services are held on the anniversary of the founder's death. The memory of the parishioners and the memory of the institution itself. Tokujuji Temple Memorial Tablet Hall gathers two different kinds of commemoration under a single roof.

The division reads from outside as well. Flanking the northern half, the founder's hall, are Katōmado windows, the flame-topped openings associated with Zen architecture. The memorial tablet end has none. The presence or absence of a window projects the internal boundary onto the outer wall.

Why It Was Registered

Tokujuji Temple Memorial Tablet Hall carries registration number 23-0347 and belongs to the 73rd round of registrations. The criterion applied was contribution to the historic landscape of Japan, and the hall was valued as a component of the temple precinct.

The case rests less on the building standing out on its own than on the job it does within the compound. The foundation is dry-laid river cobble, the outer walls are plastered in lime, and boarding runs vertically along the lower wall. Nothing about the finish is showy, yet the hall squares off the elevation behind the main hall and gives the precinct its depth.

Five buildings at Tokujuji were registered on the same day: the main hall, this memorial tablet hall, the entrance, the bell tower and the main gate. Each holds a separate registration, but the assessment looked at the precinct as a whole. Of the five, Tokujuji Temple Memorial Tablet Hall is the one standing where visitors are least likely to notice it.

The hall dates from 1934 and was renovated in 2006.

What to Look For

Seeing Tokujuji Temple Memorial Tablet Hall means walking around to the side rather than staying in front of the main hall. Look at the join in the roof. A hip-and-gable end and a plain gable end produce different bargeboard profiles and different pockets of wall beneath them. Two roof forms on one building is not a common sight.

The cobble foundation is worth a moment too. Rounded river stones laid up dry belong to the era before concrete footings became standard, and for a building of 1934 the choice looks deliberate rather than merely traditional.

Count the flame-topped windows as you walk the side elevation and you can work out the internal plan from the outside.

Getting There and Visiting

Inuyama Station on the Meitetsu network is roughly a 10-minute walk away. The address is 232 Minamikoken, Inuyama City, on the castle town street that runs from the station toward Inuyama Castle.

The precinct is open and there is no admission fee. Because Tokujuji Temple Memorial Tablet Hall joins the rear of the main hall, it stays out of sight from the approach path; walk around to the side of the compound to see the exterior. The interior is not open on a regular basis, so contact the temple in advance if you want to see the memorial tablet hall or the founder's hall inside.

One practical note. A kindergarten operates within the precinct, and mornings at drop-off and afternoons at pick-up bring a good deal of coming and going. Photographing in the grounds at those hours is best avoided.