Yoganji Temple Main Hall

The great hipped roof of the Mido

Yoganji Temple Main Hall (陽願寺本堂, Yōganji Hondō) is the large Jodo Shinshu worship hall that faces east at the center of Yoganji in Honmachi, Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture; it was completed in 1902 and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 17 August 2020. The hall itself is called the Mido, "the honored hall", the name by which the whole temple is known locally.

The hall is eleven bays by nine. The temple's survey measured it at 26.7 metres by 24.19 metres, and the national database gives a building area of 617 square metres. It is a single-storey timber structure under a hipped roof of interlocking pantiles, and from the gate that roof fills most of your field of view.

There are two ways to date it. The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives 1902, the year the temple held its completion ceremony. The temple's survey instead starts the story after the fire of 1852 destroyed the previous hall, with rebuilding begun in 1856. Traces of hand-forged Japanese nails in the rear pillars suggest the frame was standing before the end of the Edo period, and that finishing and decorating the interior took close to half a century.

Why it was registered: a hall built to near head-temple standard

The Yoganji Main Hall was registered under the criterion of serving as a model of design. The Agency's description points to the outer worship area wrapped in a broad inner veranda and an outer veranda, the way the back ends of the side verandas were enclosed to enlarge that worship area, the gold leaf and polychrome at the boundary between inner and outer sanctuaries, and a curtained chamber for dignitaries built into the north side room. Together, it says, these show high temple rank.

A Shin Buddhist main hall gives most of its floor to the outer sanctuary, where the congregation sits, with the inner sanctuary for the Amida image and two side rooms behind. Yoganji follows that plan but pushes the congregation space out into the side verandas and makes the side rooms unusually deep and wide. The temple's survey, noting also the curtained chamber, calls it a large hall equipped to the standard of a head temple. A temple that held the rank of inge and later became a bekkakuji wrote that rank into its floor plan.

The roof shape has its own story. The previous hall had a gabled-and-hipped irimoya roof and caught fire in 1852. The temple says the rebuilders avoided a roof with gables for fire safety and chose the hip. It is a tradition rather than a record, but it ties the building to a town that had just lost most of its houses to fire.

What to look for: gold in the sanctuary, columns in the hall

Step up into the outer sanctuary and the round columns come first. Four of them stand in the congregation space, and with lintels and rainbow beams they divide its length into three bays, giving order to a tall, open room.

The inner sanctuary ahead is finished, according to the temple's survey, with more than 10,000 sheets of gold leaf. The gold and color concentrate on the transoms and posts along the sanctuary boundary, in sharp contrast to the plain wood where you stand. The shrine cabinet inside carries an inscription dated 1809, showing that it and the principal image came through the 1852 fire. The building burned; what sits at its center goes back to the late Edo period.

Outside, pay attention to the height of the eaves line. The temple's survey notes that this tall hipped hall stands out even among the temples around it and shapes the local skyline. Rather than looking up from just inside the gate, walk back along the approach a little until the full ridge of the roof fits into view.

Visiting the Yoganji Main Hall

The exterior can be seen freely from the grounds. The Yoganji Main Hall is a place of worship; remove your hat when you step inside, and note that you cannot enter while a memorial service is being held.

The curtained chamber behind the north side room is on the route of the temple's guided special visit, which is by reservation. Regular paid visits run only on weekends and holidays from April through December, so plan within that window if you want time inside. The temple's photography ban is posted for the Izumo treasure hall; no separate ban is given for the main hall, but put the camera away during services.