Jisaiin Temple Shoin

A Garden Room Behind the Main Hall

Jisaiin Temple Shoin (慈済院書院, Jisai-in Shoin) is the reception and study wing of Jisaiin, a Zen sub-temple within Tenryū-ji in Saga, Ukyo Ward, Kyoto; it was built in the late Edo period, between 1751 and 1830, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2016. A single-storey timber building with a tiled roof and a building area of 61 square meters, it stands north of the main hall, at the far back of the sub-temple's plot.

A shoin is where a temple receives guests and where the abbot can sit at leisure. Unlike the main hall, it is not bound by ritual, so the relationship to the garden and the finish of the rooms tend to reveal the tastes of patron and carpenter. The Jisaiin Shoin wraps a Kirime-en veranda along its north-west side and is oriented to look out over the garden.

The Only Early Modern Shoin Left at Tenryū-ji

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the Jisaiin Shoin as the only shoin at Tenryū-ji that dates back before the modern era. It was registered as design that sets a standard, a criterion applied at Jisaiin only to this building and the main hall.

The reason lies in Tenryū-ji's history of fire. The head temple lost nearly all its halls in 1864, and its present small abbot's hall, which serves as its shoin, was rebuilt in 1924. Jisaiin escaped the 1864 fire, which left the Jisaiin Shoin as the one Edo-period shoin on the whole Tenryū-ji site.

What to Look For: An Absorbed Veranda and Sukiya Posts

The interior began as a shoin of two eight-mat rooms. Later, the broad veranda that ran along the south-west side was taken into the building, turning the whole into one generous reception room. Comparing the surviving edge of the veranda with the extent of the room shows how far the original two-room layout reached.

The alcove, a Tokonoma, is in the north-east corner. Posts such as Menkawa-bashira, squared timbers that keep strips of natural bark-side surface at the corners, bring in the vocabulary of sukiya design. The room lays the lighter touch of the tea house over the more formal frame of Shoin-zukuri, and it feels softer than the orderly main hall.

The kirime-en on the garden side has its boards laid at right angles to the building's wall, carrying the eye out from the room toward the garden. The design of the Jisaiin Shoin is organised around that link between veranda and garden.

Visiting the Jisaiin Shoin

Jisaiin is normally closed to the public, and the Jisaiin Shoin is not open. No record of a special opening was found.

The building sits at the rear of the plot, north of the main hall, and cannot be seen from the Tenryū-ji approach; the main hall and the earthen wall stand in the way, and its garden side faces inward. For transport and opening hours, see the Jisaiin Temple page.