Koryuji Temple (Hakodate)

What Koryuji Temple Is

Koryuji Temple (国華山高龍寺, Kokkasan Kōryū-ji) in Funamicho, Hakodate, Hokkaido, is a Sōtō school Zen temple founded in 1633 and regarded as the oldest surviving temple in Hakodate. On 23 February 2012, ten of its structures, from the Main Hall and Main Gate to the brick firebreak wall, were entered together on Japan's list of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties.

The temple sits on the northern foot of Mount Hakodate, at the western end of a short row of temples known locally as the Funamicho temple quarter. Its gate opens north onto the street at the top of a slope that looks down over Hakodate Bay, and the Main Hall stands at the far end of the precinct. The ten registered structures went up one after another between the late Meiji era and the early Showa era, so a walk around Koryuji covers roughly 35 years of building work. The principal image in the Main Hall is Shakyamuni Buddha.

From Kameda Village to Funamicho: Koryuji's Moves and Fires

According to the temple's own history, Koryuji began as a hall built in Kameda Village (near today's Kameda-cho in Hakodate) by the monk Banshitsu Horyu, the fourth abbot of Hogenji in Matsumae. Floods from the Kameda River and other disasters pushed the community into the growing port town of Hakodate around 1706.

After Hakodate opened to foreign trade, Koryuji housed the Russian consul and his party for a time, and Commodore Perry, who called at Hakodate in 1854, described a temple compound shaded by willows and firs. During the Battle of Hakodate in 1869 the temple served as a branch of the Hakodate Hospital. On the eleventh day of the fifth month, government troops broke in and killed wounded Aizu soldiers who were being treated there. The Shoshin Sanmoku monument in the precinct was raised by people connected with Aizu to mourn them, and a memorial service is still held in front of it every May.

Koryuji moved to its present site in Funamicho in 1879. More fires followed, but under the nineteenth abbot the rebuilding went ahead, and the Main Hall was finished across 1899 and 1900. In 1901 a dedication service was led by Morita Goyu, the sixty-fourth head of Eiheiji, and the temple's mountain name was changed to Kokkasan. The Main Hall came through the great Hakodate fire of 1907 unharmed.

Koryuji Temple and the Carpenters of Echigo

The present buildings of Koryuji Temple are the work of a carpenters' guild from Kashiwazaki in Echigo Province, now Niigata Prefecture. The Agency for Cultural Affairs names Shinoda Sokichi as master builder of the Main Hall and his successor, the fifth Sokichi, as master builder of the Main Gate. Sawada Kichihei led the work on the Konpira Hall, and the Water Basin Pavilion and Bell Tower are thought to be by the same Echigo team. Hakodate's official tourism site adds that the gate carvings were cut in Echigo and shipped north by sailing vessel.

The ten structures registered in 2012 are:

• the Main Hall (1899) and the Kaizando, or Founder's Hall (around 1897)
• the Main Gate and Flanking Walls (around 1910) and the brick Firebreak Wall (1910)
• the Treasure House (1916), the Konpira Hall (1917), and the Water Basin Pavilion and Earthen Wall (both around 1917)
• the Bell Tower (1922) and the Memorial Tablet Hall (1933)

The dates follow the Agency for Cultural Affairs database. The temple and the city sometimes give a year or two either way, and each building's own page notes the difference. Hakodate City has also listed nine of the Koryuji buildings as designated townscape buildings, describing the U-shaped layout of halls around the Main Hall as the defining sight of the Funamicho temple quarter.

How to Walk Around Koryuji Temple

Koryuji's Main Gate faces north onto the street, with flanking walls and earthen walls running out on either side. Look at the gate from the pavement first, then pass through it; the Main Hall is straight ahead at the back of the precinct.

On the left (east) side stand the Konpira Hall nearest the gate with the Water Basin Pavilion in front of it, then the Memorial Tablet Hall and the Kaizando, all linked by covered corridors to the Main Hall. On the right (west) side are the Bell Tower and, just west of it, the brick Treasure House. Going up the left side to the Main Hall and coming back past the Bell Tower and Treasure House takes in all ten.

The brick firebreak wall encloses the east side of the precinct and the western part of the north side. On the downhill east side it rises to about 7 meters, and its bulk is clearest when seen from the slope outside the grounds.

Visiting Koryuji Temple: Hours and Access

Admission to Koryuji Temple is free. The temple lists worship hours of 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., while the grounds are open from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Services and temple events sometimes close the halls, and anyone wanting to visit outside these hours, to come as a group, or to be shown around by a monk should contact the temple ahead of time. To see inside the halls, ask at the reception desk in the priests' quarters (Kuri).

From Hakodate Dock-mae, the terminus of tram route 5, walk up the Uomi-zaka slope for about 10 minutes; turn around halfway for a view of Hakodate Bay. Hakodate Bus route 1 stops at Koryuji-mae, about 1 minute from the gate. Cars can park inside the precinct.

The Meiji-era buildings have many steps, but the temple keeps a wheelchair on hand and monks will help at the changes in level. Temple seal stamps (goshuin) are given after you have paid your respects in the Main Hall; there is no fixed fee, and a donation to the offering box is asked instead.

Koryuji Temple Events and Treasures

Koryuji owns a large double-scroll painting of the Buddha's Nirvana by Kakizaki Hakyo, a senior retainer of the Matsumae domain who was also an accomplished painter. It was painted in 1811 for the eleventh abbot, Zenkai, and was listed as a Hokkaido cultural property in 1968. It is shown to the public only from 1 to 15 April each year.

In October the temple holds its annual festival for Konpira, and the abbot has said a treasure exhibition is also held that month. Other fixed dates include the Setsubun rite on 3 February and New Year prayers on 1 January, and one room of the Main Hall, the Shinzen-no-ma, is open to anyone who wants to sit in zazen. Dates can shift from year to year, so check Koryuji's own notices before planning a visit around an event.