Yamada Ryokan Yakushido

About the Yamada Ryokan Yakushido

The Yamada Ryokan Yakushido (山田旅館薬師堂, Yamada Ryokan Yakushi-dō) is a single-storey timber Buddhist hall at Otari Onsen in Otari Village, Nagano Prefecture, built in the late Edo period (between 1751 and 1829) and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on October 12, 2001, under number 20-0098.

Its Irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable roof was once thatched in Kayabuki style and is now clad in sheet metal. With a building area of 23 square meters, the Yamada Ryokan Yakushido is the smallest of the six registered buildings at Yamada Ryokan. It enshrines Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of healing, whom the inn calls Ruriko Yakushi Nyorai and regards as the guardian of the Moto-yu spring.

Why It Was Registered: A Place to Pray While Taking the Cure

The Yamada Ryokan Yakushido was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a plain hall, yet values it as evidence that guests who came to treat their illnesses with the waters also needed somewhere to pray.

Yakushi has long been worshipped as the Buddha who heals sickness. At Yamada Ryokan, a guest could soak in the spring and then offer a prayer to Yakushi on the same grounds; bathing and devotion belonged to the same stay. The inn describes the hall as having watched over the treatment and health of many bathers.

The inn gives no construction date for the Yamada Ryokan Yakushido but believes it predates the Main Building. The Agency dates the hall to the late Edo period, earlier than the final Edo decades assigned to the Main Building, so the two accounts agree. It is the oldest of the six registered buildings by date range.

What to Look For: A Small Hall Facing South Against the Slope

According to the Agency, the Yamada Ryokan Yakushido stands against the hillside northeast of the New Building and north of the Bathroom, facing south. It is the building farthest up the slope, with its back to the hillside.

The ridge runs north to south and the entrance is on the gable end, a Tsumairi arrangement, so the triangular gable of the roof faces you as you approach. The Agency gives its size as about one and a half ken square, a very small plan measured in traditional bays.

The roof keeps the hip-and-gable shape of its thatched original under a sheet-metal skin. When the thatch was replaced is not recorded, but the outline survives. Stand in front of the entrance and look up at the gable above it.

Visiting the Yamada Ryokan Yakushido and Its Festival

The Yamada Ryokan Yakushido stands within the grounds of a working inn. The inn invites guests to stroll its grounds, so those who stay or come for a day bath can see the exterior from there. There is no notice of the interior or the enshrined image being shown to visitors. This is a place of prayer, so view it quietly from outside, and ask the staff before taking photos (checked October 9, 2026).

A festival for the Yamada Ryokan Yakushido is held every year on the 7th and 8th of May and November, when the priest of Gencho-ji temple chants sutras for good health. The inn asks anyone who would like to attend to contact it in advance.