Main Hall of the Ritsu Academy

Ritsugakuin Hondō: A 1627 Hall in the Shadow of Hōryū-ji's Greatest Treasures

Built in the fourth year of the Kan'ei era (1627), the Ritsugakuin Hondō is the main hall of a small sub-temple that once served as a training academy within Hōryū-ji. It stands just east of the West Precinct, a short distance beyond the Tōdaimon, the great east gate that carries National Treasure status. Most visitors pass it on the walk toward the Yumedono without realizing what lies behind its wall, because the gate of the Ritsugakuin is usually closed.

The hall belongs to Hōryū-ji, the temple that holds the oldest surviving group of wooden buildings anywhere in the world. Against neighbors as old as the seventh century, a structure from the early 1600s might seem young. What earns the Ritsugakuin Hondō its place among the temple's protected buildings is the quality of its carpentry and the way it preserves a design that almost mirrors a far older hall nearby.

A Hall Built for Study

The name Ritsugakuin points to its original purpose. Ritsu refers to the monastic precepts, the rules of conduct that ordained Buddhist monks pledge to follow, and gakuin means a place of learning. Hōryū-ji once supported a number of sub-temples, or jiin, where monks lived and studied particular branches of doctrine. The Ritsugakuin was one of these, a quarter set aside for the study of monastic discipline.

By the early Edo period the temple was rebuilding and consolidating many of its lesser halls. The Ritsugakuin Hondō dates from that phase of work in 1627. The carpenters did not invent a new form for it. Instead they looked to the Shōryōin, the hall a short walk away that enshrines Hōryū-ji's revered image of Prince Shōtoku, and reproduced its proportions and silhouette with care.

Why It Is Designated

The Ritsugakuin Hondō was registered as an Important Cultural Property on 20 May 1976. The official assessment singles out three things: the close kinship of its form with the Shōryōin, the excellent condition of its timber, and the refinement of its detailing. The materials and joinery are described as first rate, and the carved and shaped elements as unusually well handled.

That resemblance to the Shōryōin is the heart of the matter. The Shōryōin took its present shape in the Kamakura period, centuries before the Ritsugakuin was raised. To find a 1627 hall that follows the older building so faithfully tells us how deliberately the carpenters worked within an established tradition rather than against it. The result is a clear, well-preserved example of how a sacred hall for honoring Prince Shōtoku was meant to look.

What to Look For

The Ritsugakuin Hondō is a single-story building roofed in hongawarabuki, the formal style that alternates flat broad tiles with rounded ridge tiles. The roof is an irimoya form, hipped at the lower slopes and gabled above, and the hall is entered from the gable end rather than the long side, a configuration the Japanese call tsumairi. Because of this, the front of the building reads as five bays wide while the sides run seven bays deep. A single-bay kōhai, a sheltering canopy over the entrance, projects at the front.

Stand back and compare it with the Shōryōin if you can see both in a single visit. The matching gabled fronts and the rhythm of the bays make the family likeness plain. Inside, behind the inner sanctuary, sits a zushi, a miniature shrine cabinet that houses the principal image. This one is roofed in cypress bark and topped with a karahafu, the undulating, cusped gable that signals a structure of high status. The image enshrined within is of Prince Shōtoku, the figure to whom so much of Hōryū-ji is dedicated.

Visiting and the Wider Precinct

For most of the year the Ritsugakuin is shut, and there is no scheduled interior access. The reward, then, is in the approach. As you walk from the West Precinct toward the Tōdaimon and on to the East Precinct, the hall comes into view on your right, and its exterior can be appreciated from the path.

The one moment when the hall takes a fuller part in temple life is the Oeshiki, the memorial observance for Prince Shōtoku held each year from 22 to 24 March. He died in 622, and the rite marks the anniversary of his death. During these days both the Shōryōin and the Ritsugakuin are dressed with offerings, and the Shōryōin opens its central cabinet to reveal the National Treasure regent image of the prince, shown only at this time. Stalls line the approach and the precinct fills with people. Every tenth year the observance expands into the grander Shōryō-e, with court music and dance.

The Ritsugakuin sits within easy reach of Hōryū-ji's most famous sights. To the west are the five-story pagoda and Kondō of the West Precinct, both National Treasures and among the oldest wooden buildings on earth. Continue east past the hall and you reach the octagonal Yumedono of the East Precinct. The whole of Hōryū-ji, together with the nearby Hokki-ji, was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1993.