Taimadera Temple

Taimadera: A Temple Below Mount Nijo with Its Two Ancient Pagodas

Taimadera Temple (當麻寺, also written Taima-dera or 当麻寺) is a Buddhist temple in Taima, Katsuragi City, Nara Prefecture, said to have moved to its present site in 681, and its Main Hall (Mandala Hall), East Pagoda and West Pagoda were designated National Treasures in 1952. The name is read Taimadera; the nearest Kintetsu station spells it with the simplified character, Taimadera 当麻寺.

The temple sits at the eastern foot of Mount Nijo (Nijōsan), the twin-peaked mountain on the old border between the provinces of Yamato and Kawachi. According to Katsuragi City, Taimadera began in 612 as Manpozoin, a temple built in Kawachi by Prince Maroko, third son of Emperor Yomei, and was later moved here by his grandson Taima no Mahito Kunimi to a spot linked with the mountain ascetic En no Gyoja. The sources disagree on the year of the move: the 1191 pilgrimage record Kenkyu Gojunreiki gives 681, while the Taimadera Engi of 1237 gives 691.

The principal object of worship today is the Taima Mandala enshrined in the Main Hall. Legend says Princess Chujo wove it overnight from lotus fibres, and the story made Taimadera one of the great pilgrimage sites of Pure Land devotion.

From Scholarly Temple to a Shared Shingon and Jodo House

Katsuragi City records that the Golden Hall was built in 681 around a statue of Miroku, the Buddha of the future, followed by the Lecture Hall, the Senju Hall (now the Main Hall), the two pagodas and a ring of priests' lodges beginning with Chuin, today's Nakanobo. Taimadera started as a study temple of the Sanron school; after the monk Kukai stayed here in 823 it became a Shingon temple.

In the late Heian period Taimadera was briefly a branch of Kofukuji in Nara, which made it a target when Taira forces attacked the Nara temples in 1180. The Golden Hall was badly damaged and the Lecture Hall burned. Minamoto no Yoritomo sponsored the rebuilding, and both halls standing today date from the Kamakura period.

In the fourteenth century Chion-in, the head temple of the Jodo (Pure Land) school in Kyoto, founded Ojoin inside the precinct. That foundation survives as the Okunoin, and it brought the Jodo school into Taimadera. The temple has been shared by Shingon and Jodo ever since.

Thirteen sub-temples (Tatchū) stand in the precinct. Four of them, Nakanobo, Sainain, Okunoin and Gonenin, support the main temple and take turns running its office year by year.

How Taimadera Is Laid Out, and a Walking Order

The main entrance to Taimadera is the Niomon, the east gate at the eastern edge of the grounds, and the approach runs west from there. Just inside hangs a temple bell cast in the late seventh century, which the temple describes as the oldest in Japan.

Walking west, you reach the Lecture Hall and Golden Hall standing in a north-south line, the Lecture Hall to the north. Beyond them, at the western end of the compound, the Main Hall faces east; the Agency for Cultural Affairs notes this east-facing position in its description. In front of the Golden Hall stands a stone lantern of the late seventh century, carved from tuff quarried on Mount Nijo.

The two pagodas occupy the rising ground south of the Golden Hall, the East Pagoda to the southeast and the West Pagoda to the southwest. A Nara Prefecture report explains that the West Pagoda sits on a terrace cut into the north slope of a ridge running east from Mount Nijo. The temple says Taimadera is the only place in Japan where a pair of ancient three-storied pagodas still stands east and west.

Farther back, at the far western edge closest to the mountain, lies the Okunoin. The Yakushido Hall is on the opposite side, to the northeast, on a detached plot outside the Yakushi Gate. With the sub-temple gardens added, the grounds reward an unhurried visit.

Taimadera's National Treasure and Important Cultural Property Buildings

Seven designations cover Taimadera's buildings:

• Main Hall (Mandala Hall): 1161. Protected in 1898 under the Ancient Shrines and Temples Preservation Law; National Treasure in 1952
• East Pagoda: Nara period. Protected in 1897 under the same law; National Treasure in 1952
• West Pagoda: early Heian period. Protected in 1897 under the same law; National Treasure in 1952
• Golden Hall: before 1268, early Kamakura period. Designated in 1899; Important Cultural Property
• Lecture Hall: 1303, late Kamakura period. Designated in 1899; Important Cultural Property
• Yakushido Hall: 1447, mid-Muromachi period. Important Cultural Property in 1971
• Okunoin (Main Hall, Hojo and Bell Tower Gate, 3 buildings): 1604 to 1647. Important Cultural Property in 1989

Buildings from the eighth century through the seventeenth stand together here on one site. Beyond architecture, the seated Miroku in the Golden Hall, the shrine cabinet and altar platform of the Main Hall, and the bell near the gate are also National Treasures.

Visiting Taimadera: Hours and Fees

The grounds of Taimadera are open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and walking around them is free. The interiors you can enter are those of the three central halls, the Main Hall, Golden Hall and Lecture Hall, with tickets sold inside the Main Hall. One ticket covers all three: 1,000 yen for adults and 500 yen for elementary-school children (checked September 2026). Prices change for a few days around New Year.

The temple's visitor guide lists no interior viewing for the East Pagoda, West Pagoda or Yakushido Hall, so treat them as buildings seen from outside. The sub-temples that open to the public, such as Nakanobo, Sainain, Okunoin and Gonenin, each charge their own fee. The Okunoin charges 500 yen for adults including its treasure house, 250 yen for children; Nakanobo charges 500 yen for adults and 250 yen for elementary-school children.

Group bookings and general enquiries go through Nakanobo.

Getting to Taimadera

By train, the nearest stop is Taimadera Station on the Kintetsu Minami-Osaka Line, about 15 minutes' walk west of the Niomon gate. From Osaka Abenobashi, a semi-express bound for Kashiharajingu-mae takes about 40 minutes. From Nara or Kyoto, change at Kintetsu Kashiharajingu-mae and take a semi-express toward Osaka Abenobashi for about 15 minutes; if you board an express instead, switch to a local at Shakudo, two stops short of Taimadera.

Drivers can turn off at the Taimadera intersection into the narrow street leading to the gate, but the private car parks in front of the Niomon have few spaces. When they are full, return to the prefectural road and use the city-run Taima tourist car park beside the intersection, which also takes coaches. Cars are banned from the approach during the peony season, Golden Week and the Nerikuyo on 14 April, so the train is the better choice on those days.

The car park behind the temple belongs to the Okunoin and is for its visitors only; you cannot walk from the Okunoin entrance into the main grounds without paying. Enter the central precinct through the Niomon or the North Gate, known as the Black Gate.

The Nerikuyo Procession and Peony Season

Every year on 14 April Taimadera holds the Nerikuyo, formally Shoju Raigo Nerikuyo Eshiki, which re-enacts the legend of Princess Chujo being welcomed alive into the Pure Land. A long bridge is laid from the Main Hall to the Shabado hall in the east, and members of the local bodhisattva confraternity, masked as the Twenty-Five Bodhisattvas, walk it to lead the princess to paradise. The Main Hall stands for the Western Paradise, the Shabado for the everyday world.

Taimadera is also a temple of flowers. From late April to early May peonies bloom in the gardens of the sub-temples; Nara Prefecture's tourism site puts the number at about 5,000 plants. The Okunoin traces its own peony garden to peonies painted on the ceiling of the Buddha room in its Hojo, built in 1612.