Enjoji Main Hall

A Heian Amida Hall, Rebuilt After the Fire

Enjoji Main Hall (圓成寺本堂, Enjō-ji Hondō) is a late Muromachi-period Buddhist hall at Enjoji Temple in Ninnikusen-cho, Nara City, built in 1472 and designated an Important Cultural Property in 1952. It is an Amida hall, dedicated to Amida Buddha, and faces you as soon as you pass through the temple gate.

The national record describes it as 5 bays by 5 bays, single-storey, with a hip-and-gable (irimoya) roof turned so that its gable end is the front (Tsumairi), a 3-bay porch roof over the entrance and copper-sheet roofing. The shrine cabinet (zushi) inside is designated together with the hall.

After fire destroyed the earlier hall in 1466, rebuilding began at once, and this hall was the centrepiece of that recovery. The temple describes it as rebuilt immediately after the fire; the Agency for Cultural Affairs gives 1472 as its date.

A Copy of What Was Lost

What makes Enjoji Main Hall worth the trip is that a 15th-century building carries a 12th-century design. According to the temple, the dismantling repair that began in 1958 showed that the builders reproduced the size and style of the original Amida hall of 1112, the one lost in 1466. The rebuilding was a deliberate act of memory, and it is the reason the hall was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1952.

The plan is unusual for a Buddhist hall. The temple explains that the core is 3 bays across by 4 deep, flanked by 1-bay side aisles whose roofs run on from the main roof in a single sweep. The front aisle is an open wooden deck: steps rise in the central bay, and the bays to either side are raised a step higher to form a stage. The temple sums it up as an Amida hall in the manner of a Heian aristocrat's mansion, with side aisles added to a shrine-like form.

The two sets of figures describe the same building. The Agency's 5 by 5 counts every bay including the aisles; the temple's 3 by 4 counts only the core.

The core posts are round, the corner posts carry simple boat-shaped bracket arms, and the rest are square with deeply chamfered edges. Domestic touches like these, borrowed from Heian palace architecture, were kept through the Muromachi rebuilding.

The Stage and the Painted Pillars

Standing before Enjoji Main Hall, the broad open deck takes the eye first: central steps, with a raised stage on either side. A stage built into the front of a Buddhist hall is a rare thing.

On the altar platform (Shumidan) sits a large shrine cabinet open on three sides, holding the seated Amida. The temple says the cabinet bears an inscription from the Muromachi rebuilding; look for the curled bracket arms projecting from its corners and the carved struts (Kaerumata) on each face. The Amida is late Heian, and Kamakura-period figures of the Four Heavenly Kings stand at the corners around it.

The four inner pillars are painted in bright colour with bodhisattvas, among them Kannon and Seishi, playing instruments and dancing. With the Amida at the centre, pillars and statue together stage the raigō, the moment Amida descends with his host to welcome a believer to paradise.

Seeing It in Person

Enjoji Main Hall can be visited during opening hours, and from the open front deck you can see the Amida and its cabinet inside. Photography of statues and paintings inside the hall is prohibited, and that includes the painted pillars.

For the whole building, stand just inside the gate. From there the gable end facing you and the roof running unbroken over the side aisles read as a single composition. Admission and transport are covered on the Enjoji Temple page.