Gangoji Temple Gokurakubo Grounds

What the Gangoji Temple Gokurakubo Grounds Are

The Gangoji Temple Gokurakubo Grounds (元興寺極楽坊境内, Gangōji Gokurakubō Keidai) are the precinct of Gangoji Temple in Chuincho and neighboring districts of Nara City, Nara Prefecture, preserved as the site of the ancient temple's monks' dormitory and designated a Historic Site on February 22, 1965. The Agency for Cultural Affairs lists the site as spanning four districts: Chuincho, Nakashinyacho, Shibatsukinukecho and Kasasagicho.

The designation covers land, not buildings: the ground on which the Main Hall and the Zen Room stand. According to the agency, Nara-period Gangoji occupied the seventh ward of the fourth and fifth avenues on the eastern side of the capital, Heijō-kyō. Nearly all of that former precinct now lies under the city, surviving only in street patterns and place names. The Gangoji Temple Gokurakubo Grounds were chosen as the one part where clear remains could still be protected.

Why the Grounds Are a Historic Site

The site was designated under the criterion for "sites or former precincts of shrines and temples, and other remains connected with ritual and belief." The agency explains that the pagoda site of Gangoji had already been designated, and that this designation added the dormitory site. In effect, two different parts of the ancient complex, the pagoda and the monks' quarters, are protected as separate Historic Sites.

The agency's reasons are specific. The grounds lie north of the pagoda site, with houses in between. They contain part of the Higashimuro Nankai Daibō dormitory, whose foundation stones survive with the Main Hall and the Zen Room built on top of them. Traces of the Shōshibō, a smaller dormitory, also remain, and its building has been moved to the south of the Zen Room. Most strikingly, the northeast corner of the lecture hall's foundations was found at the southwest edge of the grounds, southwest of the Zen Room. The agency calls the discovery fortunate: it means the layout of the Nara-period dormitory and lecture hall can be checked on the ground.

The database gives no area for the designated site and leaves the owner field blank.

What to Look For in the Grounds

The buried remains themselves are out of sight, but foundation stones found in excavations nearby have been brought into the Gangoji Temple Gokurakubo Grounds and set out above ground. According to the temple, the three stones lined up north of the Hōrinkan were found in 1998 when the Nara City Board of Education excavated in Nakashinyacho, and their findspot suggests they once supported the lecture hall. Each has a raised seat 80 to 90 centimeters across on its upper face, so you can picture columns of that thickness standing on them.

North of the Shōshibō sits a single belfry foundation stone, found in Nakashinyacho in 1981, with a small projection at the center of its seat. Both sets of stones came from excavations in the surrounding streets, and they give a sense of how massive the lost complex was.

On the south side of the grounds spreads the Futoden, neat rows of stone pagodas and Buddhist figures. The temple explains that these monuments had been piled on a stone platform northwest of the Zen Room until they were rearranged in 1988; about 1,500 memorial stones from the Middle Ages through the Edo period are kept here. They show that the old dormitory site remained a place of prayer long after the great temple was gone.

How to Visit the Grounds

The Gangoji Temple Gokurakubo Grounds are open as part of a visit to Gangoji, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with last entry at 4:30 p.m., and the Futoden and the relocated foundation stones can be viewed freely during those hours. The wider former precinct beyond the walls is now the streets of Naramachi, where some street and district names still echo the old temple.

On August 23 and 24 each year the Jizō-e lantern service lights small oil lamps across the Futoden; the Nara City Tourism Association lists the service from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. The temple's website gives no photography policy for the grounds. Directions and admission details are on the Gangoji Temple page.