Jogi Nyorai Saihoji Temple Water Purification Pavilion

About the Jogi Nyorai Saihoji Temple Water Purification Pavilion

The Jogi Nyorai Saihoji Temple Water Purification Pavilion (定義如来西方寺手水舎, temizusha) is a small timber pavilion built around 1933 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 has a gabled (Kirizuma-zukuri) roof covered in copper sheet and covers just 2.8 square meters.

The pavilion stands just inside the Main Gate on the south side of the approach path, to your left as you walk in, facing the Bell Tower across the path. Visitors rinse their hands and mouth here before praying. The temple says it was built by Hanawa Denkichi of the Kesen carpenters, and that its completion closed the building campaign of the early Showa years.

Why the Water Purification Pavilion Was Registered

The pavilion was registered as a model of good design. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as small but richly ornamented and properly designed. Miyagi Prefecture adds that, for all its size, it has a full ceiling and lively carving.

Sendai City notes how much it shares with the Bell Tower opposite, including a curved tie beam set at the head of the posts and a coffered (Gō-tenjō) ceiling. The same designer and carpenters had built the tower the year before, and they carried its methods over to a building about a quarter of its size. As a result the two buildings on either side of the path differ in scale but match in standing, which gives the old precinct a consistent look.

Square Posts and Three-Block Brackets

Four square posts, one at each corner, hold up the Water Purification Pavilion. The Bell Tower across the path uses round posts, so the difference shows before you notice anything else.

A curved tie beam runs across the heads of the posts. The bracketing is the Mitsudo-gumi type, in which three bearing blocks sit on a single arm to carry the beam above. It is one step simpler than the Degumi brackets of the Bell Tower, but the pavilion still places a frog-leg strut (Kaerumata) at the middle of each side, just as the tower does. The eaves use two layers of closely spaced rafters, and a coffered ceiling covers the underside of the roof.

Sendai City records that the roof was first covered in wooden shingles (Kokerabuki) and is now copper. The pavilion was repaired in 1957.

Visiting the Water Purification Pavilion

The Water Purification Pavilion is still used for its original purpose. When you stop to rinse your hands, look up: the tie beam, the brackets, the struts and the coffered ceiling are all within arm's reach, so this is the easiest place on the grounds to study the detailing up close.

Stand in the middle of the path and look from the pavilion to the Bell Tower and back. The contrasts (square posts against round, simple brackets against stepped ones) and the shared tie beams and coffered ceilings become clear side by side. The temple gives the gate hours of this precinct as 8:00 a.m. to 4:15 p.m.

No photography rules are posted for the pavilion, though the temple bans drone photography without permission. If someone is using the basin, wait until they have finished before taking pictures.