Jisaiin Temple Priests' Quarters

The Working Heart of the Sub-Temple

Jisaiin Temple Priests' Quarters (慈済院庫裏, Jisai-in Kuri) is the Kuri, or kitchen-and-residence building, of Jisaiin, a Zen sub-temple within Tenryū-ji in Saga, Ukyo Ward, Kyoto; it was built in 1799 and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2016. It is a single-storey timber building with a tiled roof and a building area of 101 square meters, standing east of the main hall and linked to it by the entrance corridor.

In a Zen temple the kuri handles cooking, administration and the monks' daily life, while the main hall is reserved for ritual. The Jisaiin Priests' Quarters is where the sub-temple's everyday business has been carried on for more than two centuries.

Why the Jisaiin Priests' Quarters Was Registered

It was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes its façade as a conventional composition and notes that its carved ornament reflects the period well. The value lies in how faithfully it represents a kuri of the 1790s rather than in any rarity.

Jisaiin is said to have burned in 1792, which would make the Jisaiin Priests' Quarters part of the rebuilding seven years later. Tenryū-ji suffered further fires in 1815 and 1864, and Jisaiin came through both with this building intact.

What to Look For: The Gable and the Earthen-Floor Beams

The roof is gabled, and the entrance is on the gable end (Tsumairi). In the gable, a tie beam rests on boat-shaped bracket blocks; above it, at the centre, sit a Kaerumata (frog-leg strut) and a rainbow beam carrying a vase-shaped Taiheizuka strut, flanked on each side by a curving Ebi-kōryō, the so-called shrimp beam. Stacking a strut on a rainbow beam and framing it with shrimp beams was a stock formula for Edo-period temple gables.

The carved scroll and leaf patterns change over time in the tension of their lines and the tightness of their curls. The Agency reads those on the Jisaiin Priests' Quarters as typical of the late eighteenth century. A dated building like this one is a useful reference for judging the age of other temple carving.

Inside, the plan is close to square, and the eastern half is a Doma, an earthen-floored work area. A great central pillar rises in the middle of it, and heavy beams spread out overhead with no ceiling to hide them. It is a space built for fire, smoke and cooking, and the exposed framing is the building's second face.

Visiting the Jisaiin Priests' Quarters

Jisaiin is normally closed to the public, so there is no general opportunity to see the interior of the Jisaiin Priests' Quarters or the beams over the earthen floor. No special openings were found.

The building stands inside the front gate, behind the earthen wall along the Tenryū-ji approach. The gable carving is hard to study at close range, and visitors should not enter the gate. Transport and opening hours for Tenryū-ji are on the Jisaiin Temple page.