Jorakuji Temple

Jorakuji Temple at a Glance

Jorakuji Temple (常楽寺, Jōraku-ji) is a Jodo-shu Buddhist temple in Higashikanki-cho, Kakogawa City, Hyogo Prefecture, whose main hall of 1692 and three other Edo-period buildings were listed as Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 31 July 2007.

Locals call it Kanki no Jorakuji, the Jorakuji of Kanki, and it is best known as the temple that stands on the site of Kanki Castle, a stronghold destroyed in the wars of the late sixteenth century. The principal image is Amida Nyorai. According to the Kakogawa Tourism Association, a weeping cherry greets visitors in spring.

Four buildings are registered: the main hall, the Yakushido Hall, the main gate and the bell tower. They span 170 years, from the main hall of 1692 to the Yakushido of 1862, so a walk of a few dozen steps from the gate to the hall takes you from the early Edo period to its final years.

A Temple on a Castle Site

The temple grounds occupy part of the former Kanki Castle. Kakogawa City's historical and cultural plan, published in March 2019, lists the castle site and Jorakuji together as a single place.

The Kakogawa Tourism Association tells the story. In 1578 (Tensho 6), during the Harima campaign of Hashiba Hideyoshi (the future Toyotomi Hideyoshi), Kanki Castle under its lord Kanki Yorisada was besieged by an army of about 30,000 led by Oda Nobutada and Hideyoshi. The garrison is said to have driven back the attackers again and again, but Yorisada and most of his men were killed and the castle fell. His grave lies behind the main hall.

The temple's own account, posted on its website, traces Jorakuji to 1333, when the warlord Akamatsu Norimura had the monk Kyoshin Myotetsu found a temple in the village of Nakanishi. It later became the family temple of the lords of Kanki Castle, a branch of the Akamatsu. The 1578 fighting burned its halls to the ground. The resident priest, Shoshun, buried Yorisada's body on the castle site and built a small hall beside the grave, and the temple dates its presence on the present site from that act.

The same account records a grant of temple land from Ikeda Terumasa, lord of Himeji Castle, in 1613, and a vermilion-seal licence from the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu in 1648 confirming an estate rated at 18 koku 4 to. The present main hall followed some four decades later.

Dating the Buildings

Arranged by the dates in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database, the four buildings run as follows.

• Main hall: 1692 (Genroku 5), with a formal entrance wing added in 1722 (Kyoho 7)
• Bell tower: 1754 (Horeki 4)
• Main gate: 1770 (Meiwa 7)
• Yakushido Hall: 1862 (Bunkyu 2)

The entrance wing came three decades after the hall itself, and the bell tower and gate went up in the mid eighteenth century, completing the southern edge of the grounds. The Yakushido belongs to the last years of the shogunate and is the youngest of the four.

One discrepancy is worth knowing. The temple's website gives the gate as 1862 and the Yakushido as 1770, the reverse of the national record. Both sources agree on the buildings themselves, a pyramid-roofed hall in copper for the Yakushido and a gabled, tiled gate, so this page follows the Agency for Cultural Affairs, whose record underpins the registration.

How the Grounds Are Laid Out

The Agency's descriptions place all four registered buildings toward the west side of the grounds.

The south edge: gate and bell tower

The main gate, a four-legged Shikyakumon, stands toward the western end of the south side and is the way in. The bell tower sits immediately west of it on a stone-faced platform, so the two stand shoulder to shoulder along the southern boundary.

The west side: main hall and entrance wing

The main hall faces south from the western part of the grounds. Since the gate is on the same side, walking north from it brings you straight to the front of the hall. To the east of the hall runs the entrance wing of 1722, presenting a formal porch under a cusped gable to the south.

South of the hall: Yakushido

The Yakushido is a small hall south of the main hall, turned to face east into the middle of the grounds rather than south like its larger neighbour. Yorisada's grave lies out of sight behind the main hall, a reminder of how the temple came to be here.

What Was Registered

All four buildings entered the national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Building) in the 55th round of listings, dated 31 July 2007, under the consecutive numbers 28-0277 to 28-0280.

Three were listed as models of design (the main hall, gate and bell tower); the Yakushido was listed for its contribution to the historic landscape.

• Main hall (28-0277): single-storey timber, tiled roof, building area 374 square metres
• Yakushido Hall (28-0278): single-storey timber, copper roof, building area 15 square metres
• Main gate (28-0279): timber, tiled roof, frontage 3.8 metres
• Bell tower (28-0280): timber, tiled roof, area 8.4 square metres

The list of cultural properties in Kakogawa City's plan names five registered buildings at Jorakuji, adding a Daishido. The national database shows only the four above, and we found no registration of a Daishido at this Jorakuji.

The same city list records two paintings owned by the temple: a Kamakura-period descent of the Amida triad (designated by Hyogo Prefecture in 2000) and a Nanbokucho-period painting of Yakushi with the Twelve Divine Generals (designated by Kakogawa City in 1990). We could not confirm any schedule for showing them.

Visiting and Getting There

Jorakuji is a working temple serving its parishioners. As of October 2026, neither the temple nor the Kakogawa Tourism Association published admission fees or opening hours, and we found no regular opening of the four buildings' interiors. The exteriors can be seen from the grounds; keep your voice down when services are under way or families are visiting graves. To ask about seeing inside or taking photographs, call the temple on 079-432-3866.

The temple's website offers 360-degree views of the grounds and the main hall interior, which help with getting your bearings before a visit.

By public transport, take a Shinki Bus from JR Kakogawa Station and get off at the Kanki stop; the temple is right there (Kakogawa Tourism Association). Check Shinki Bus timetables for routes and journey times. We could not confirm any parking for visitors.

The temple's calendar lists equinox services in March and September, the segaki memorial in August, the Juya service in November and the ringing of the bell on New Year's Eve. If you want time with the buildings, avoid those days.

About the Name

Jorakuji is pronounced "jo-raku-ji", and its mountain name is Hoshozan (法性山). The district name 神吉 is read Kanki. Kakogawa has other temples of the same name, in Kamiso-cho Inokuchi and Kakogawa-cho Ono, which is why locals add the place name and speak of the Jorakuji of Kanki.

In the national database the four buildings appear as 常楽寺本堂, 常楽寺薬師堂, 常楽寺山門 and 常楽寺鐘楼. On the question of school, the Agency describes the main hall as a Jodo-shu hall, while the temple's website identifies itself with the Seizan Zenrinji branch of Jodo-shu, whose head temple is Eikando Zenrinji in Kyoto.