Kodaiji Otamaya Mausoleum

About the Kodaiji Otamaya Mausoleum

The Kodaiji Otamaya Mausoleum (高台寺霊屋) is a mausoleum hall of 1605 at Kodaiji in Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto, and was designated an Important Cultural Property on April 7, 1900. It enshrines Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Kita no Mandokoro, whose grave lies beneath her statue (Agency for Cultural Affairs, Kodaiji).

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records it as four bays by three, single-storey, with a pyramidal (Hōgyō-zukuri) cypress-bark roof and a one-bay porch with a cusped karahafu gable. It is owned by Kodaiji, the temple founded in 1606 by Kita no Mandokoro (Nene) for Toyotomi Hideyoshi, which has five buildings designated Important Cultural Properties (Kodaiji, Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Why It Was Designated

The Kodaiji Otamaya was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1900. According to Kodaiji, its altar platform and shrines are decorated in gorgeous maki-e lacquer known as "Kodaiji maki-e", a byword for Momoyama art.

What to Look For

The Kodaiji Otamaya is four bays by three under a pyramidal (Hōgyō-zukuri) cypress-bark roof, with a one-bay porch under a cusped gable (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Inside, Kodaiji says, steps and shrines decorated with Momoyama maki-e survive: gold flat maki-e combined with sprinkled grounds and needle-drawn lines on black lacquer, so influential that similar work came to be called Kodaiji maki-e.

Visiting the Kodaiji Otamaya Mausoleum

Kodaiji is open 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (last entry 5:00 p.m.). Admission is 800 yen for adults and 400 yen for junior and senior high school students, and a combined discount ticket with Entokuin is 1,200 yen. Hours are extended during special evening openings such as in autumn (Kodaiji).

From the Higashiyama Yasui city bus stop it is a 7-minute walk east, or about 10 minutes from Gion-Shijo Station on the Keihan line (Kodaiji).