Shōrinbō Onari-no-ma: A Guest Wing with Its Own Bathroom
Most descriptions of registered temple buildings run to roofs and brackets. The Agency for Cultural Affairs entry for the Onari-no-ma at Shōrinbō mentions something more domestic: a bath and a lavatory, tucked along the south rear elevation.
That detail explains the building better than any amount of joinery vocabulary. The Onari-no-ma was not built to be looked at. It was built so that a guest could stay.
The wing stands southeast of the Kyakuden, reached along a connecting corridor, in the compound of Meikyōzan Shōrinbō at 1280 Miyoshi-chō in the northern Hiroshima city of Miyoshi. The temple belongs to the Hongan-ji branch of Jōdo Shinshū. Both the Onari-no-ma and the Kyakuden went up in 1934, the newest pair among eight buildings the temple placed on the national register of tangible cultural properties on 25 July 2011.
The Name Is the Function
The term onari belongs to the vocabulary of arrival. It was the word used for the visit of a person of high rank, and by extension an onari-no-ma is the room prepared to receive one. Temples of standing kept such a suite ready, held apart from the working rooms, opened only when the occasion required it.
Shōrinbō's version occupies 117 square metres of single-storey timber under a tiled roof. Three rooms sit in a row running east to west, with a veranda wrapped around the outside. The easternmost is the principal room, and it carries the fittings that mark rank in a Japanese interior: a toko alcove, a tokowaki beside it, and a tsukeshoin, the built-in writing bay with its low window looking onto the garden. Each room is ceiled with saoburi tenjō, boards carried on slender exposed battens, and the walls are finished in sunakabe, sand plaster.
Then the bath and the lavatory at the back, and a geya skirt roof running round the whole thing.
Add those up and the plan describes a small, self-contained residence attached to a temple: sleep, wash, receive, look out at the garden, without needing to cross into the priests' quarters. The Agency's registration criterion for the building is that it contributes to the historic character of the landscape, the same clause applied to six of its neighbours. Its registration number is 34-0118.
Restraint, on Purpose
Walk from the Kyakuden into the Onari-no-ma and the volume drops.
The Kyakuden is roofed in hongawarabuki, the heavy pan-and-cover tiling of formal buildings, and announces itself with an undulating kara-hafu porch. The Onari-no-ma, thirty metres away and built in the same year by the same patron, uses sankawarabuki: flat pantiles, the ordinary tile of the period. Its irimoya roof has no porch at all.
The interior follows the same logic. Sand plaster does not gleam. Exposed batten ceilings are the plainest of the formal ceiling types, well below the coffered ceilings used in the sutra repository across the compound. The Agency's own phrase for the effect is a composed, settled arrangement.
None of this is a shortfall of ambition. A room built for an honoured guest to occupy is not a room built to impress a crowd, and the shoin fittings in the east room carry the formality that the surfaces deliberately withhold. The Kyakuden performs. The Onari-no-ma accommodates. Reading the two buildings against each other is the most rewarding thing a visitor can do at Shōrinbō, and it costs nothing but a change of position in the courtyard.
Practical note. Shōrinbō is a working parish temple, not a museum, which is precisely what the registration system is designed to allow. The compound and the exteriors are accessible to visitors; the Onari-no-ma interior is not on any public schedule. Enquiries can be made on 0824-62-2284.
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Q&A
- What does onari-no-ma mean?
- Onari is an honorific term for the arrival or visit of a person of high rank. An onari-no-ma is therefore the room, or suite of rooms, kept ready to receive such a guest. It is a room type found in temples, shrines and larger residences.
- Is the interior open to visitors?
- There is no published opening schedule. Shōrinbō is an active Jōdo Shinshū temple and its buildings remain in religious use. The grounds and exteriors can be visited. Contact the temple in advance if you hope to see inside.
- What is a tsukeshoin?
- A built-in bay projecting from the wall of a formal room, with a low sill window and a writing shelf beneath it. Originally a place to read and write by natural light, it became one of the standard fittings that mark a room as ceremonially important, usually appearing alongside the toko alcove and the tokowaki shelving beside it.
- Why is the Onari-no-ma plainer than the Kyakuden?
- The two buildings do different work. The Kyakuden houses the audience hall where the priest formally receives visitors, so its exterior carries the signals of ceremony: heavy hongawarabuki tiling and a kara-hafu porch. The Onari-no-ma is lodging for a single honoured guest, complete with bath and lavatory, and its lighter pantiles, sand plaster and batten ceilings suit a room meant to be lived in rather than presented.
- How old is the temple itself?
- Temple tradition traces the founding to Myōkō Shōnin, one of the six senior disciples of Shinran in the Kantō region, with the temple first established in what is now Fukuyama during the Kamakura period. It is said to have been moved to Miyoshi in 1602 under the tenth abbot. The oldest building standing today is the gate of 1665.
Basic Information
| Name | Shōrinbō Onari-no-ma (照林坊御成の間) |
|---|---|
| Reading | Shōrinbō Onari-no-ma |
| Category | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure) |
| Registration number | 34-0118 (70th listing round) |
| Registered | 25 July 2011 |
| Registration criterion | Contributing to the historic character of the landscape |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Date | 1934 |
| Structure | Timber, single storey, tiled roof; irimoya roof with sankawarabuki pantiles, geya skirt roof, three rooms in a row with veranda, bath and lavatory at south rear |
| Floor area | 117 square metres |
| Interior | Toko alcove, tokowaki and tsukeshoin in the east principal room; saoburi batten ceilings; sunakabe sand plaster walls |
| Type | Religious / building |
| Address | 1280 Miyoshi-chō, Miyoshi City, Hiroshima Prefecture |
| Owner | Religious corporation Shōrinbō |
| Temple | Meikyōzan Shōrinbō, Jōdo Shinshū Hongan-ji branch |
| Access to interior | Active temple; no published public opening. Enquiries: 0824-62-2284 |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database (Agency for Cultural Affairs) — Shōrinbō Onari-no-ma
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00008777
- National Cultural Properties Database — Shōrinbō Kyakuden (adjoining building)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00008776
- Miyoshi Tourism Organisation — Meikyōzan Shōrinbō
- https://www.miyoshi-dmo.jp/play/shourimbo/
- Hiroshima Prefecture — List of Cultural Properties (PDF)
- https://www.pref.hiroshima.lg.jp/uploaded/attachment/591373.pdf
- Miyoshi City — Registered Cultural Properties
- https://www.city.miyoshi.hiroshima.jp/soshiki/49/3527.html
Last verified: 2026.07.18