Daitokuji Temple

A Zen Precinct That Survives Almost Complete: Eleven Buildings

Daitokuji (大徳寺) is the head temple of the Daitokuji branch of Rinzai Zen at Murasakino Daitokujicho, Kita Ward, Kyoto City, and eleven buildings of its main precinct were designated Important Cultural Properties on 5 April 1909 under designation number 00189. Two of them, the abbot's hall and its entrance porch, were raised to National Treasure status on 18 June 1957.

The scope needs stating first. What follows concerns the eleven buildings of the honbo: the abbot's hall, the entrance porch, the main gate, the Buddha hall, the dharma hall, the kitchen, the bathhouse, the sutra repository, the corridor, the sleeping hall and the attendants' quarters. The National Treasure Chinese-style gate carries a different designation number and is a separate item, and the twenty-two subtemples in the precinct each hold designations of their own.

The layout preserves the Zen planning imported from China. Running north from the imperial messenger's gate, the main gate, the Buddha hall and the dharma hall stand almost in a straight line, with the abbot's hall behind them: the classic seven-hall arrangement. Few Zen temples retain their principal buildings this completely. The precinct itself was designated a National Historic Site in 2016.

The Abbot's Hall and Entrance Porch: Two National Treasures

The abbot's hall dates from 1635 and measures 29.8 metres by 17.0, single-storeyed, hip-and-gable roofed and covered in pantiles, with the Unmon-an attached at the rear.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs states the unusual point in a single line: it is of a distinctive scale, comprising eight rooms. A Zen abbot's hall normally has six rooms; Daitokuji sets out four in each of two rows. The same note then judges the detailing to be plain and clear throughout, well resolved, and an example of the early modern Zen abbot's hall. Unusual size and plain handling sit together in this building.

The national database carries an internal inconsistency about the date. The year field gives 1635, while the detailed commentary on the same page says the hall was rebuilt in 1636. The discrepancy sits inside the official record, which is why both years appear in temple accounts and guidebooks.

Inside, wall and door paintings by the early Edo painter Kano Tan'yu are themselves Important Cultural Properties. The dry garden facing south is a nationally designated Special Place of Scenic Beauty and Historic Site. The entrance porch of 1636, given by the merchant Goto Masukatsu, is the formal way into the abbot's hall: six bays by one, single-storeyed under a curved gable.

Forty-eight years separate the 1909 listing from the 1957 elevation. When the Cultural Properties Protection Law took effect in 1950, buildings held under the old National Treasure system were carried across as Important Cultural Properties, and those judged of outstanding value were then designated National Treasures again in stages.

The Central Axis and the Nine Around It

The main gate dates from the Momoyama period and is also called Kinmokaku. It is bound up with one of the harder stories in Japanese tea history. In 1589 Sen no Rikyu placed a wooden image of himself in its upper storey, which is said to have angered Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and in 1591 Rikyu was ordered to take his own life.

The Buddha hall belongs to the middle Edo period and is generally dated to a rebuilding of 1665. The dharma hall is early Edo, and its ceiling carries a dragon in clouds by Kano Tan'yu; clap directly beneath it and the hall returns a ringing echo.

The remaining buildings are the equipment a temple needs to work as an institution. The kitchen prepared food, the bathhouse served the monks, the sutra repository held the scriptures. The corridor and the sleeping hall connect buildings and receive the movement around ceremonies. The attendants' quarters housed the monks who served the founder's image.

That last building alone is Muromachi work, the oldest in the group. Where most of the others were rebuilt in the early Edo period, one structure survives from the recovery that followed the Onin War.

Why Eleven Buildings Form One Item

The abbot's hall alone is an unusual eight-room Zen hall. The bathhouse alone is a monks' washhouse. Only with eleven in view does the structure of a Zen temple as an institution become readable.

Ceremonial buildings run along the north-south axis from the messenger's gate through the main gate and the Buddha hall to the dharma hall, with the abbot's residence and its formal porch behind. Kitchen, bathhouse, sutra repository, sleeping hall and attendants' quarters surround them, and the corridor ties everything together. Ceremony, living, storage and circulation survive as a nearly complete set. The 1909 designation took the eleven as one item because that completeness is what it recognised.

Daitokuji began in 1315, when Shuho Myocho opened a small hermitage at Murasakino. In 1325 Emperor Hanazono granted it status as a place of imperial prayer, and formal foundation followed the next year. Most of the precinct burned in the Onin War, after which the forty-seventh abbot Ikkyu Sojun rebuilt with support from the merchants of Sakai. When Toyotomi Hideyoshi held Oda Nobunaga's funeral here in 1582, warlords competed to found subtemples, and the precinct took the shape it holds today. The concentration of early Edo work among the surviving buildings corresponds to that period of rebuilding.

Visiting: The Main Precinct Is Normally Closed

The eleven buildings of the honbo are not open on a regular basis. Interiors, including the abbot's hall and its porch, can be seen only during special openings. The abbot's hall entered a restoration programme in 2020 expected to run about ten years, so ordinary access is not in prospect for some time. Check the temple's announcements before travelling.

Walking the precinct is free, and the main gate, Buddha hall and dharma hall can be seen from outside along the central approach. Walking north from the south end reproduces the alignment directly, and that walk is the surest way to understand the plan.

Twenty-two subtemples stand in the precinct, four of them open year-round. These carry separate designations and separate admission charges. A visit aimed at the subtemples and a visit aimed at the precinct plan are two different walks.

Photography in the precinct is generally unremarked, but many subtemples prohibit it indoors, so ask at each. Kyoto city buses 101, 205 and 206 stop at Daitokuji-mae directly outside; from Kitaoji Station on the Karasuma subway line it is about fifteen minutes on foot.