Zengyoji Temple Drum Tower

What the Zengyoji Temple Drum Tower is

The Zengyoji Temple Drum Tower (善行寺太鼓楼, Zengyōji Taikorō) is the drum house of Zengyōji, a Shinshū Ōtani-ha temple in Aichichō, Nakagawa Ward, Nagoya; dated to the late Edo period, it was entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure) on 10 May 2018.

It stands northeast of the main gate. The record describes it as a timber building, single story with a partial three-story section, roofed in tile, with a floor area of 50 square metres. A Kirizuma-zukuri roof runs east to west, and a one-bay turret with a pyramidal Hōgyō-zukuri cap rises from it, set west of centre, with a lean-to skirt running around all four sides.

That is hard to picture in words and easy to grasp on site. A long gabled roof, one small tower pushing up through it, and the tower sitting off-centre toward the west. This asymmetry gives the Zengyoji Temple Drum Tower its silhouette.

Why a Pure Land temple has a drum tower

The national database gives the registration criterion for the Zengyoji Temple Drum Tower as "contributing to the historic landscape of the nation." The temple's own account goes further, calling it valuable as a drum tower of the kind that characterises the layout of Jōdo Shinshū temple compounds.

A drum tower houses a drum used to mark the hours and to signal the start of services. Where a bell tower hangs a bronze bell, a drum tower seats a drum, and in the Shin tradition the two have long been counted together among the elements of a temple precinct. Zengyōji has both, which is to say it retains this compound arrangement rather than a reduced version of it.

Having two sound sources is also practical. A bell and a drum differ in timbre and in how far they carry. Announcing the hour to the surrounding neighbourhood and calling people already inside the gate are not the same task and do not need the same sound. That the Zengyoji Temple Drum Tower sits near the gate rather than beside the Main Hall is unlikely to be unrelated to how its sound travels.

A storehouse below, a tower above

The most interesting thing about this building is that its two levels did different jobs. The temple records that the interior was converted into living rooms at a later date, but that it began as a storehouse, and that the western half retains a mezzanine and the stair up to the turret.

So the structure worked twice over: a tower marking time above, a place to keep goods below. Devotional equipment and household equipment shared one roof. Temple architecture in Japan is usually pictured through its public faces, the worship hall and the gate, but a temple is also somewhere people live, and it needs space for rice and tools. The Zengyoji Temple Drum Tower answered both needs in a single building.

The official phrase "single story with a partial three-story section" is a description of exactly this. The main body is a low structure with its lean-to skirt; only the turret reaches the height of a third floor. A difference in purpose became a difference in section.

From outside, check where along the gable the turret breaks through. Its westward shift corresponds to the mezzanine and stair in the western half. The asymmetry of the exterior is the internal division of labour made visible.

Visiting

The Zengyoji Temple Drum Tower stands within the precincts and can be seen from close by. The temple states that its graveyard and columbarium are open to visitors between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. without booking. The interior has been converted to rooms and no public opening is advertised.

No admission charge is published, and no photography policy is published. If in doubt, ask at the temple office on 052-351-5000, staffed on weekdays from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The nearest station is Kogane on the Kintetsu Nagoya Line, about a nine-minute walk. A taxi from Nagoya Station takes roughly nine minutes. Drivers exit the Nagoya Expressway Route 5 Manba Line at the Kogane interchange, about four minutes away, and ten parking spaces are available; the temple warns of one-way streets nearby.

Pass through the gate and bear right toward the back of the precincts to reach the Zengyoji Temple Drum Tower. In July a sumo practice ring is set up in the eastern part of the grounds for the Nagoya tournament, so sightlines in this corner differ from the rest of the year.