Yoganji Temple

The temple Rennyo named

Yoganji Temple (陽願寺, Yōganji) is a Jodo Shinshu temple of the Hongwanji-ha branch in Honmachi, Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture, founded in 1484 according to temple records; nine of its buildings, led by the main hall, were listed as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 17 August 2020. Locally it is simply "Mido", the honored hall, or Fuchu Mido after the old name of the town. The grounds sit in the middle of the old Takefu townscape.

Its founder, Zenchin, had been the sixth head priest of Goshoji, today the head temple of the Shinshu Izumoji-ha. From 1482 he spent three years at Yamashina Hongwanji in the service of Rennyo, the great reformer of the Hongwanji line. Back in Echizen, Zenchin built a small temple at Iwasaki in Hirose village, now part of Echizen City. In 1485 Rennyo named it Yoganji. The temple explains yo as the true and right teaching and gan as the vow.

When Rennyo died in 1499, his successor Jitsunyo sent Zenchin a portion of Rennyo's ashes with a covering letter. The temple still keeps both.

The move to the present site came at the end of the civil-war period. After the second head priest had fought Oda Nobunaga's army in the Echizen Ikko uprising, the lord of Fuchu Castle, Aoki Kii-no-kami, granted the temple its current land in 1595. In 1597 Junnyo, the twelfth head of Hongwanji, gave Yoganji the rank of inge and charge over the branch temples of Echizen. That is when the names Mido and Gobo took hold. Through the Edo period the Honda family, rulers of Fuchu, treated it as their family temple.

A fire in 1852 and a long rebuilding

Most of what stands today was built after the temple lost everything. On 23 March 1852 a fire that began in Koshin-cho swept through most of Fuchu, and Yoganji's main hall, thirteen bays on each side, burned with the priests' quarters and the rest. The temple chronology dates the start of rebuilding to 1856, under the thirteenth head priest.

The work took decades. In 1868 a younger brother of the heir to the Hongwanji abbacy came as fourteenth head priest, and in 1902 a completion ceremony marked the finished main hall, priests' quarters, bell tower and gate. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database dates the main hall to 1902, the year of completion; the temple's own survey reads traces of hand-forged Japanese nails in the rear pillars as evidence that the frame went up before the end of the Edo period. In 1911 Yoganji became a bekkakuji, a temple of special standing within the Hongwanji-ha.

The next generation left its own layer. Under the fifteenth head priest a small Western-style reception building went up around 1934 and a two-storey guest hall around 1942, and the reinforced-concrete ossuary belongs to the same line of work. A late-Edo rebuilding with prewar and postwar living quarters and a burial hall added on top: that layering is what makes this precinct distinctive.

Why nine buildings were listed at once

A full survey of the buildings and temple treasures began in 2018, and on its findings nine buildings were registered on the same day, with consecutive registration numbers from 18-0202 to 18-0210.

Seven of them, the main hall, audience hall, Goten hall, Western-style building, guest hall, ossuary and bell tower, were listed under the criterion of serving as a model of design. The priests' quarters and the storehouse were listed for their contribution to the historic landscape. The audience hall and Goten hall, built to receive the head of Hongwanji, run west from the priests' quarters in a single line, and the prewar Western-style building and guest hall continue beyond them. What the registration recognises is not only the quality of each building but the survival, in one connected sequence, of the reception and living spaces that a high-ranking Shin Buddhist temple kept in use into the modern era.

For several buildings the national database and the temple's published survey give different dates. The temple places the main hall, priests' quarters and Goten hall in the rebuilding that began around 1856; for the ossuary the temple says early Showa, the database 1951. Each building's page gives both.

How the precinct is laid out

You enter through the gate in the middle of the east side, which the temple says was moved here in 1873 from the Honbo magistrate's office. Straight ahead, the main hall faces east under a broad hipped roof. On the left, the south side of the approach, the bell tower stands on a tall stone base. Far right, in the northeast corner, the small pyramid-roofed building is the ossuary, also called Rennyo-do, and in front of the main hall stands a bronze statue of Rennyo presented in 1943.

The priests' quarters adjoin the main hall to the north; the temple's reserved special visit meets at their entrance. From there the reception wing runs west: audience hall, then Goten hall, then, off the Goten's south veranda, the Western-style building, and beyond it the two-storey guest hall. Between the Goten hall and the back of the main hall lies the Goten garden, dug lower at its center around a pond. The white-walled storehouse stands in the northwest corner.

From the open grounds you can see the main hall, bell tower and ossuary, and parts of the other buildings' exteriors. The interiors of the audience hall, Goten hall and Western-style building, and the Goten garden, are seen on the paid visit, walking through the buildings in sequence.

Visiting and getting there

The grounds are open for worship. Paid visits to the shoin wing and garden run only on Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays from April through December, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with last entry at 3:30 p.m. Admission is 500 yen for adults and 300 yen for junior high school students; elementary school children and younger enter free. There are no regular visits on weekdays or from January through March. When a memorial service is under way in the main hall or audience hall you cannot go inside, and some buildings close on event days.

Remove your hat inside the main hall. Photography and video are not allowed in the Izumo treasure hall. Groups are asked to book ahead where possible.

There is also a guided special visit by reservation. In 2026 it runs from 4 April to 27 December for parties of 2 to 40, takes about an hour and costs 2,000 yen per person (1,700 yen for junior and senior high school students, 1,500 yen for elementary school children and younger). Apply by phone or the online form at least seven days ahead. The temple office is open 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; telephone 0778-22-0981.

By rail, get off at Takefu Station on the Hapi-Line Fukui and walk about 10 minutes, or take a taxi for about 5. By car it is about 15 minutes from the Takefu interchange on the Hokuriku Expressway, and the temple has parking for about 25 vehicles, large buses included.