Shinshoji Temple

A Stone Temple Built by Hidden Nenbutsu Believers

Shinshoji Temple (新照寺, Shinshō-ji) is a Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist temple in Sumiyoshi, Aira City, Kagoshima Prefecture, whose stone main hall, raised in 1892, and its main gate, stone wall and side gate, built in 1895, were listed together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan on April 18, 2008.

The stone is the story. In the Satsuma domain, the Shimazu lord Yoshihiro banned the Ikkō sect, as Jōdo Shinshū was then called, in 1597, and the prohibition held until freedom of religion was proclaimed in Kagoshima in 1876. For nearly three centuries believers formed local confraternities, called kō, and met in secret in the hills and in caves to chant the nenbutsu. Historians call this underground faith kakure nenbutsu, "hidden nenbutsu."

Aira City's account says the stone main hall of Shinshoji began with the wishes of one of those confraternities, which the city records as the 煙草講 (literally "tobacco kō"). The city dates the completion of the hall to 1893 and says the main gate and the stone wall followed two years later, paid for by a donor it names as 水流金太郎. The stone is said to have been cut in the Terashi district nearby. Within about sixteen years of the ban being lifted, a congregation that had worshipped in hiding put up a hall in stone rather than timber.

The Four Listed Structures and Their Dates

The four registration numbers run consecutively from 46-0069 to 46-0072, all announced in the 59th round of registrations: the main hall (46-0069), the main gate (46-0070), the stone wall (46-0071) and the side gate (46-0072).

They were listed under two different criteria. Only the Shinshoji Temple Main Hall was registered as a structure that would not be easy to reproduce, a judgment on the rarity of a Buddhist hall built of stone. The gate, the wall and the side gate were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape, since together they form the temple's outer face.

Each structure carries its own evidence of date. A munafuda, the wooden ridge tag placed at the raising of a roof, records the year the main hall was raised along with the names of its master mason and master carpenter. An inscribed plaque stone set into the wall dates the stone wall. The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that the upward curve on the top of the side gate's lintel stone matches the work on the main gate and the wall, placing all three in the same campaign.

Sources differ by a year on the main hall. The agency's database and the Kagoshima Prefectural Board of Education give 1892, while Aira City says the hall was completed in 1893. The earlier date comes from the ridge tag, so the gap may simply be the time between raising the roof and finishing the building, but no source consulted spells that out.

How the Shinshoji Precinct Is Laid Out

Pieced together from the agency's descriptions, the Shinshoji precinct is compact. The main hall faces south, and the main gate stands directly south of it at the top of a sloping path that climbs from the road in front. Visitors come up the slope, pass through the gate and arrive at the hall's porch.

A watercourse runs along the south and west edges of the grounds. The stone wall follows it for 58 meters, set on top of a castle-style masonry retaining wall built along the channel. At the north end of the wall, west of the hall's outer worship space, the side gate opens at the head of a flight of 9 stone steps that rises from the road on the west.

So Shinshoji has two ways in: the main gate up the slope on the south, and the side gate up the steps on the west, with the stone wall turning the corner between them.

Visiting Shinshoji Temple

Shinshoji is a working temple, and it publishes no visiting hours, admission fee or schedule for opening the hall. The main gate, the stone wall and the side gate can be seen from the surrounding roads; whether you can go inside the main hall depends on the temple. Avoid times when services are under way, and if you step into the grounds, a word with someone at the temple is courteous. For questions about the cultural properties, the contact is the cultural properties section of the Aira City Board of Education (phone 0995-62-2111).

The nearest station is Chōsa on the JR Nippō Line. Shinshoji lies about 6 kilometers to the northwest by road, roughly 15 minutes by car. Aira City's Kamō district community bus, the Kamō–Yamada–Chōsa route, links Chōsa Station with the Sumiyoshi area, but it runs only on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and not on public holidays or over the New Year period, so check the city timetable before relying on it.

The agency's database gives the address as 545 Sakuragi, Sumiyoshi, Aira City; Aira City's listing shortens it to Sumiyoshi 545.