Zenzanji Temple

A Shingon Temple at the Foot of Mount Tokko

Zenzanji Temple (前山寺, also romanized Zensanji) is a temple of the Chisan branch of Shingon Buddhism on the northern foot of Mount Tokko in Maeyama, Ueda City, Nagano Prefecture; temple tradition holds that Kukai founded it in 812 as a place for fire-ritual practice and that the priest Choshu refounded it on its present site in 1331.

The name is read Zenzanji, although the district around it, written with the same first two characters, is Maeyama. The temple sits at the southern edge of the Shioda basin, farmland that the temple and local tourism bodies call the Kamakura of Shinshu for its concentration of medieval Buddhist buildings. The temple describes its own position this way: the basin spread out below, Ueda Castle and the Chikuma River off to the east, the hot-spring village of Bessho to the west.

Five of its buildings hold national protection. The three-storied pagoda was designated an Important Cultural Property on 13 April 1922. The main hall, the priests' quarters (kuri), the formal entrance and the main gate were entered together on the register of Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 6 March 2024.

The temple's own chronicle fills in the rest. Zenzanji began as a temple teaching the Hosso and Sanron doctrines side by side. Choshu came from Zentsuji, the great temple of Sanuki Province on Shikoku, and moved an existing cloister called Shoboin to this slope. Across the ravine to the west lie the remains of Shioda Castle, and by the temple's account Zenzanji occupied the castle's kimon, the ill-omened direction through which misfortune was believed to enter; it served as the castle's prayer temple and drew the patronage of local warlords. From the Jokyo era, beginning in 1684, it answered to Chishakuin in Kyoto and became a seminary for the Shingi branch of Shingon in Shinano, at one point overseeing more than forty subsidiary temples.

The mountain's name comes with a story too. Kukai is said to have performed a blessing here with a tokko, the short double-pointed ritual implement of esoteric Buddhism, and water sprang from the ground. A rock shelter higher on the mountain, the Iwaya-do, serves as the temple's inner sanctuary and holds an image of Kukai.

Two Terraces and Five Protected Buildings

The grounds of Zenzanji Temple step up the hillside in two levels.

The lower terrace belongs to the Kayabuki main hall, a broad thatched building facing south. East of it comes the entrance hall, and east of that the priests' quarters, so that the three read as one continuous frontage. They were not built together: the main hall dates from the middle of the Edo period, the priests' quarters from 1830, and the entrance from the closing decades of Edo rule.

On the west side of the main hall, a flight of stone steps ends at the main gate, a thatched Yakuimon that faces north. It was built in the late Edo period and moved to this spot in 1933. South of the gate the upper terrace opens out, and the Muromachi-period pagoda rises beyond a further run of steps and a ginkgo tree. Down at the start of the approach stands a second gate, a simple Kabukimon flanked on the inside by the Six Jizo; it is not part of the registration.

An Important Cultural Property and four registered buildings: the categories differ, but the Agency for Cultural Affairs, in its note on the priests' quarters, describes that building as forming the historic landscape of the precinct together with the main hall and the pagoda. Taken together, the protected structures span from the Muromachi pagoda to the late-Edo entrance.

From the Outer Gate to the Pagoda

A visit to Zenzanji follows a fixed line. Through the outer gate, up the approach, under the main gate and into the forecourt of the main hall. The pagoda waits one more climb above.

On the slope between the main-hall garden and the pagoda garden, wisteria has been planted so that the hanging flowers come level with your eyes as you pass. The Shinshu Ueda Tourism Association puts the peak in mid-May, when mountain azaleas and tree peonies bloom alongside. The temple calls itself a temple of flowers, and in autumn it is known for its maples.

Fixed dates in the temple calendar include the Kobo Festival on 29 April, a memorial service for unborn children on 5 May and the Urabon service for ancestors on 10 August. Sutra-copying sessions are held several times a year, and the temple publishes each year's schedule in advance.

Hours, Admission and Getting There

Zenzanji Temple is open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Admission costs 200 yen for adults (150 yen each in groups of 20 or more), 100 yen for high school students and 50 yen for elementary and junior high school students.

The main car park, with room for 30 cars, is beside the outer gate. A separate area of 10 spaces next to the main gate is reserved for visitors with limited mobility.

By car, allow about 30 minutes from the Ueda-Sugadaira interchange via the Ueda Bypass and Prefectural Route 65. Rail travellers arrive at Ueda Station, served by the Hokuriku Shinkansen and the Shinano Railway, and a taxi from there takes about 20 minutes. From Shiodamachi Station on the Ueda Electric Railway Bessho Line, it is roughly 40 minutes on foot or 15 minutes by shuttle bus. From Bessho Onsen the temple lists about 10 minutes by taxi, 20 minutes by shuttle bus, or an hour and a half on foot. Check shuttle days and times before relying on them.

Zenzanji also serves kurumi ohagi within the precinct, a hospitality the head priest's wife first offered to parishioners in the postwar Showa years: glutinous rice grown in the Shioda basin under a sauce of wild walnuts gathered on the temple grounds, 900 yen a serving. The service closes in winter, and booking ahead shortens the wait.