Shinshoji Temple Side Gate

A Small Gate at the Top of 9 Stone Steps

The Shinshoji Temple Side Gate (新照寺通用門, Shinshō-ji Tsūyōmon) is a small stone gateway built in 1895 on the west side of Shinshoji Temple in Sumiyoshi, Aira City, Kagoshima Prefecture, and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on April 18, 2008, under registration number 46-0072.

A tsūyōmon is a side gate for everyday comings and goings, as distinct from the formal front entrance. The Shinshoji Temple Side Gate sits west of the outer worship space of the main hall, where the stone wall ends at its northern tip, and you reach it by climbing 9 stone steps from the road on the west.

The opening is only 1.1 meters wide and the posts stand 2.0 meters high. Next to the main gate, with its 3.1-meter opening and 3.4-meter posts, it is modest: wide enough for one person at a time, and the smallest of the four listed structures at Shinshoji.

What the Curved Lintel Tells Us

The main hall has its ridge tag and the stone wall has its inscribed plaque. The side gate carries no written date. It is still assigned to 1895, the same year as the main gate and the wall, because of the shape of the stone laid across its top.

That lintel stone is cut in the form of a small roof, and its upper surface is given a slight upward curve. The Agency for Cultural Affairs reads this curve as evidence that the side gate was built at the same time as the main gate and the stone wall. The same line appears on the capstones of the main gate posts and on the corner capstones of the wall, so the three pieces were most likely made in one campaign, by the same masons or at least to the same design.

The Shinshoji Temple Side Gate was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. It closes off the end of the stone wall and gives the precinct its western entrance, finishing the temple's outer face as seen from the west road.

Monolithic Posts and a Roof-Shaped Lintel

Each post of the Shinshoji Temple Side Gate is a single long stone with no joints, 2.0 meters tall. A roof-shaped lintel spans the two posts, and that is the whole gate: unlike the main gate, it has no wing walls.

Look up and you will see the lintel doing the job of a roof. Two slopes are carved down either side of it, and the ridge along the top is gently curved. Where a timber gate would carry a small tiled roof, this one renders the same form in a single block of stone.

The view from the foot of the steps is worth a pause. Steps, posts and lintel stack up in one vertical line, and small as it is, the gate reads clearly as an entrance.

Seeing the Shinshoji Temple Side Gate

The side gate faces the road on the west side of the temple. Standing at the foot of the steps, you can see the posts and lintel head on, and the curve of the lintel shows best when you look up at it from slightly to one side.

Through the gate, the west side of the main hall is right in front of you. This is a working entrance to an active temple, so do not block the steps, and if you go in, avoid the times when services are held.