Renjoji Temple

Renjoji Temple: A Nichiren Temple in Miyama's Ōno Valley

Renjoji Temple (蓮乗寺, also written Renjō-ji) is a temple of the Nichiren school of Buddhism in Ōno, Miyama-cho, Nantan City, Kyoto Prefecture, where the main hall of 1799 and three other buildings were entered on the national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Property on December 5, 2019.

The temple stands at 13 Onoannotani in the western part of Miyama, in a farming settlement strung along the upper reaches of the Yura River. Neither the Agency for Cultural Affairs nor Nantan City gives a founding date for Renjoji Temple, and the records consulted for this page are silent on when it began.

What the registered buildings do record is a period of steady growth. The main hall came first, in 1799. The Banshin Hall followed in 1828, and the bell tower and main gate are dated to the last decades of the Edo period, between 1830 and 1868. Within a few decades of the main hall, a village temple had assembled the full set of structures it still uses.

How the Buildings Came to Be Registered

The construction dates are a fairly recent discovery. According to the Buddhist trade paper Bunka Jiho (September 2019), when the parish applied for Kyoto Prefecture and Nantan City subsidies to re-cover the main hall roof in copper sheeting, specialists surveyed the buildings, and their report fixed the date of each one. The national database lists the main hall renovation under 2016.

On the strength of that survey, the Council for Cultural Affairs recommended all four buildings for registration on July 19, 2019, and they were registered that December 5 as numbers 26-0590 through 26-0593. Each was recognized under the same criterion: a structure that contributes to the historic landscape of the country. Bunka Jiho reported that the temple marked the news with commemorative events, which the head of the parish council saw as a chance for the community to revisit its own history.

Reading the Temple Grounds

The precinct of Renjoji Temple is compact, and all four registered buildings sit within a few minutes' walk of each other. You enter through the main gate, a Yakuimon on the south edge of the grounds, a little east of center, facing south.

Immediately to the right, in the southeast corner, is the bell tower. It faces north, into the grounds, and the Agency's description notes how it pairs with the gate to tighten the temple's street frontage. Straight ahead in the middle of the site, the main hall faces south under a broad Irimoya-zukuri roof. To the left, in the southwest corner, the Banshin Hall also faces north.

Because the gate and main hall face south while the bell tower and Banshin Hall face north, the buildings roughly look in on a shared open space. The easiest route is to walk from the gate toward the main hall, then turn around to take in the fronts of the bell tower and Banshin Hall. Each building has its own page covering structure and details.

Visiting and Getting There

Renjoji Temple is a working parish temple with a resident priest. It publishes no visiting hours or admission fee and is not run as a sightseeing facility, so keep your visit low-key: avoid times when services or parish gatherings are under way, and contact the temple in advance if you hope to see inside any of the buildings. We found no posted rules on photography; photographing the exteriors is the considerate default, and ask before photographing worshippers or ceremonies.

By public transport, take a Nantan City bus on the Ōno Line from Wachi Station on the JR Sanin Line to the stops in the Ōno district, a ride of about 20 minutes. The Ōno Line links Wachi Station with the Miyama branch office, and there are only a few services a day. Timetables change, so check the current one on the Nantan City website before setting out, and plan the short walk from the bus stop on a map.

Drivers can leave the Kyoto Jukan Expressway at Kyotamba-Wachi IC, then follow National Route 27 and Prefectural Route 12 upriver along the Yura toward Miyama. We found no published information on parking at the temple, so take care not to block the narrow lanes of the settlement.