Sojiji Temple Soin

Sixteen buildings at Sojiji Temple Soin, from Edo halls to Taishō rebuilding

Sojiji Temple Soin (總持寺祖院, Sōjiji Soin) is the group of buildings of a Sōtō school Zen temple in Monzen, Monzen-machi, Wajima City, Ishikawa Prefecture, whose sixteen structures, ranging from the Hakusan Shrine main hall of 1661 to the main gate of 1934, were designated together as an Important Cultural Property on December 9, 2024. A section of boundary wall (sujibei) is included as an attached item.

The sixteen fall into two groups. Eight date from the Edo period: the Hakusan Shrine main hall, the sutra repository, the Dentōin Mitamaya, the Jiunkaku Kannon Hall, the Hōkōdō, the Hakusan storehouse, the Sanjushōkan gate and the rear gate. According to the temple, the Dentōin, Jiunkaku and sutra repository were among the buildings that survived the fire of 1898. The other eight were built between the 1910s and the 1930s as the site was rebuilt as an ancestral temple: the Daisodō, the Butsuden, the main gate, the bell and drum tower with its cloister, the Eshinrō and Genpūrō corridors, and the Dentōin Karamon gate.

Officially this is a single designation named Sōjiji Soin, with the sixteen buildings recorded as its parts. The Kōshakudai, the Zen'etsurō corridor and the Hakusan Well on the same grounds are protected under the separate national registration system and are not part of this designation.

Why the buildings of Sojiji Temple Soin were designated

The designation rests on two criteria: excellent design and high historical value. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the complex as a branch temple rebuilt on the founding ground of Sōjiji, one of the two head temples of Soto Zen, after the head temple moved to Yokohama following the Meiji-era fire. It credits the Soin with keeping a rank equal to the new head temple, with preserving the scale and layout it had held since the Edo period, and with carrying through later disasters the mixed early-modern and modern landscape of the rebuilding years.

For individual buildings, the Agency points to the spacious interior and fine detailing of the Daisodō, which serves as both lecture hall and founders' hall; to the Butsuden, a guest hall with the traditional Soto main-hall plan converted for use as the Buddha hall; and to the main gate, a powerful two-story gate with rich ornament. Early-modern buildings such as the sutra repository and Hakusan Shrine main hall stand around the cloister, and together they form one large temple complex.

Wajima City notes that the designation brought under one status buildings that had been protected separately: the sutra repository by Ishikawa Prefecture, the Jiunkaku and Dentōin by the city, and the Daisodō, Butsuden and main gate under the national registration system.

The Daisodō, Butsuden and main gate of Sojiji Temple Soin

The largest building is the Daisodō of 1913, 30.3 meters by 23.6 meters, a single-story hip-and-gable (Irimoya-zukuri) hall with a cusped Noki-karahafu porch on the front and a pan-tile roof (Sangawara-buki). The temple says it is built entirely of zelkova. Keizan Jōkin is enshrined at the center, with Dōgen and the second patriarch Gasan on either side. The transom carvings tell the story of Keizan's life from his birth through his travels, and the temple credits them to master carvers from Yamagata Prefecture, a father and son working across two generations.

The Butsuden, also of 1913, measures 24.9 by 18.5 meters under a hip-and-gable roof. Shakyamuni sits at the center, flanked by Daigen Shuri Bosatsu and Bodhidharma. In the reception room behind, which once served guests, hangs calligraphy by the swordsman and statesman Yamaoka Tesshū. The Agency notes that the hall began as a guest hall, which is why it keeps the feel of a shoin-style residence rather than a typical Buddha hall.

The main gate is a three-bay, two-story gate with three passageways, 12.7 by 7.3 meters, with connecting walls and stair halls on either side. The temple gives its height as 17.4 meters, again in zelkova, with Kannon and the Five Hundred Arhats enshrined upstairs and a large plaque reading "Shogakusan" by Maeda Toshinari on the upper front. The Agency dates the gate to 1934; the temple gives 1932 as the year it was finished.

Corridors and the bell and drum tower at Sojiji Temple Soin

Double-pitched covered corridors link the great halls. The Eshinrō, from around 1913, joins the Butsuden and Daisodō and runs 31.0 meters with its turns. The Genpūrō of around 1924 is the longest at 62.2 meters and has a gabled projection on its north side. The cloister attached to the bell and drum tower, also from around 1924, extends 19.6 meters.

The bell and drum tower, from around 1913, is 3.6 meters square with a hip-and-gable roof and a flared, skirt-like lower story (Hakamagoshi). The Dentōin Karamon of 1913 is a gate with a cusped roof facing forward, with sleeve walls to either side. Corridors tying the halls together, with gates and the tower at key points, are what turn the buildings of Sojiji Temple Soin into one continuous space.

Edo-period buildings at Sojiji Temple Soin

The oldest building on the grounds is the Hakusan Shrine main hall of 1661, a one-bay shrine in the Nagare-zukuri style with a shingle (Kokerabuki) roof. On October 2, 2025 it hosted the first Hakusan festival held since the earthquake. The sutra repository of 1743 is 10.3 meters square with a pyramidal (Hōgyō-zukuri) shingle roof and a pent roof (Mokoshi) around it, and inside it holds an octagonal revolving sutra case (rinzo).

The Dentōin Mitamaya of 1822, the mausoleum of Keizan Jōkin, is a small pyramidal-roofed hall sheathed in copper. The Jiunkaku Kannon Hall of 1811 enshrines a Kannon in the form of a monk, which the temple says stood on this spot before Sōjiji was founded; before the earthquake it was shown only once a year, at the festival on July 17. The Hōkōdō is a building of 1809 moved here in 1911 and now used as an ossuary hall.

The Hakusan storehouse is a two-story clay-walled storehouse of the late Edo period, moved in 1821. The Sanjushōkan at the entrance is a Kōraimon gate from around 1803, flanked by earthen walls, and the rear gate is a one-bay Yakuimon gate of 1823, moved to its present position between the late Meiji and early Taishō eras. Three of the eight Edo-period buildings, the Hōkōdō, the storehouse and the rear gate, were relocated before joining the present layout.

Earthquake damage and the repair plan for Sojiji Temple Soin

The recommendation for designation came ten months after the earthquake of January 1, 2024. The temple's damage report shows harm to the main gate, Daisodō, Butsuden, Eshinrō, Genpūrō and bell and drum tower among others, and a large landslide on the hillside behind the Daisodō.

The temple's reconstruction office has costed the repair of the sixteen buildings at about 3.1 billion yen, in three phases. Phase 1 (February 2025 to March 2031) covers the Daisodō, Hōkōdō, Sanjushōkan, Hakusan storehouse, boundary wall, rear gate, part of the Genpūrō and the body of the main gate. Phase 2 (April 2028 to December 2032) covers the Butsuden, Dentōin Mitamaya, Dentōin Karamon, Jiunkaku Kannon Hall and Eshinrō. Phase 3 (April 2031 to March 2034) covers the Hakusan Shrine main hall, bell and drum tower with cloister, the south wing of the main gate, the sutra repository and the Genpūrō.

Work is already under way. In autumn 2025 the north and south sections of the Genpūrō were taken down to open a work route for the Daisodō and for stabilizing the slope behind it. Surveys then found the Butsuden's columns in worse condition than expected, so its turn was moved ahead of the Daisodō, and in February 2026 a contract was signed to dismantle the Butsuden and other parts for storage and investigation.

Visiting the sixteen buildings of Sojiji Temple Soin

The grounds of Sojiji Temple Soin are open for a fee, and most of the sixteen buildings are seen from the outside, from the areas open to visitors. The temple's guide names the lecture hall (Daisodō), main gate, Butsuden and sutra repository as highlights, but since the earthquake the cloister and the surroundings of buildings under repair are partly closed. Some buildings, such as the Genpūrō, have been dismantled, and the Butsuden is about to be taken apart for investigation.

Which interiors can be entered will change as the work proceeds, so check with the temple before you go. Photography rules are not given on the website; ask at the reception. Directions, opening hours and admission are on the Sojiji Temple Soin group page.