Jogi Nyorai Saihoji Temple Amulet Office

About the Jogi Nyorai Saihoji Temple Amulet Office

The Jogi Nyorai Saihoji Temple Amulet Office (定義如来西方寺御守授所, omamori-sazukesho) is a tiny timber booth for handing out protective charms, built in 1927 at Jogi Nyorai Saihoji Temple in Okura, Aoba Ward, Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, and it became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on March 27, 2018. It is a single-story building with a hip-and-gable (Irimoya-zukuri) roof of copper sheet and a building area of 6.1 square meters.

The Amulet Office stands in front of the Sadayoshi Mausoleum Hall on the south side of the approach path. The temple calls it the Sadayoshi Hall amulet office, and it still serves its first purpose: temple talismans, charms (omamori) and goshuin, the handwritten seals collected by pilgrims, are given out here. Miyagi Prefecture reads the name omamori-sazukesho, while the national database of the Agency for Cultural Affairs gives omamori-jujo.

Why the Amulet Office Was Registered

The building was registered as a model of good design. It measures only 2.9 meters by 2.1 meters, yet the Agency for Cultural Affairs calls its construction thorough and proper, pointing to the hip-and-gable copper roof as evidence.

Hanawa Kikuzo of the Kesen carpenters designed it in 1927, the same year the Sadayoshi Mausoleum Hall was rebuilt, so the hall and the booth in front of it came from the same hand. The value of the Amulet Office lies in that pairing: a hut for selling charms was given a roof form that holds its own beside what was then the temple's main hall.

Glass Doors and Vertical Boards

A horizontal rail (Nageshi) runs around all four sides of the Amulet Office at waist height, with overlapping clapboards (Shitami-itabari) below it. Above the rail the sides differ. The east and north faces are glazed doors from end to end, and the remaining walls are vertical boards pierced by a window and an entrance. The north face is the side that looks onto the approach path.

The building has been moved once. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, it was shifted in one piece in 1976 by Hikiya, the technique of moving a building without taking it apart, and it was repaired in 1957 and 2008. Its earlier position is not recorded in the published sources.

Visiting the Amulet Office

The Amulet Office is in daily use, so you can receive talismans, charms and goshuin when it is staffed. The temple gives the gate hours of this precinct as 8:00 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. but does not publish separate hours for the counter, so check at the temple office if you arrive late. The interior is not open to visitors.

The approach path is the place to look at it from. The glazed north and east faces, the rail and clapboards at the base and the compact hip-and-gable roof all fit in one view with the carved porch of the Sadayoshi Mausoleum Hall just beyond.

No photography rules are posted for the Amulet Office, though the temple bans drone photography without permission. Keep clear of the counter while others are being served.