Choonji Temple

About Choonji Temple

Choonji Temple (潮音寺, Chōon-ji) is a temple of the Sōtō school in Kowada, Ojiya City, Niigata Prefecture, whose Kannon Hall of 1817 and late-18th-century main gate were entered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on March 27, 2018.

The district name 小粟田 is read Kowada. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database spells it 小栗田, with a near-identical character, while Ojiya City and the postal address use 小粟田. Anyone searching Japanese sources for Chōonji should try both spellings. The city's online heritage archive files the two structures under the Chida district.

Ojiya City describes the way both buildings were put together as a continuation of local building traditions. Both belong to Choonji Temple and remain part of the working life of the temple rather than museum pieces.

Layout of the Temple Grounds

The Agency's descriptions place both registered structures relative to the main hall (hondō), which is not itself registered.

• The main gate stands to the east of the main hall. It is a modest four-legged gate, or Shikyakumon, 2.9 meters wide, with a tiled roof.
• The Kannon Hall stands northeast of the main hall and faces south. It covers 48 square meters and has a metal-sheet roof.

Both buildings sit on the east side of the main hall. By the database coordinates, the Kannon Hall lies just north of the gate, roughly 35 meters away, so that from the gate area the south-facing front of the hall should come into view when you turn north.

The two plots are numbered 962 Okada (Kannon Hall) and 961 Okada (gate). The temple itself gives its address as Kowada 961.

The Two Registrations at Choonji Temple

Choonji Temple's Kannon Hall and main gate were registered in the 89th round of registrations on March 27, 2018, under consecutive numbers: 15-474 for the hall and 15-475 for the gate.

They qualified under different criteria. The Kannon Hall was recognized as a model of form, chiefly for the carving on its bracket sets and transoms. The gate was recognized for its contribution to the historic landscape, as the structure that frames the way into the temple.

Their dates rest on different kinds of evidence. The hall is dated to 1817, and an ink inscription of 1821 inside its shrine cabinet (kuden) led Ojiya City to conclude that the cabinet was made a few years after the building. No dated record has been cited for the gate; its leaf, whorl and jewel motifs place it around the end of the 18th century. That makes the gate the older of the two by several decades.

Kumanku Sennichi at Choonji Temple

Every year on August 9, Choonji Temple holds Kumanku Sennichi, a merit day for Kannon on which a single visit is said to bring the blessings of 99,000 days of worship. The Kannon Hall is the focus of the day.

According to event listings, the festival runs from 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. In 2023 a prayer service was held in the Kannon Hall at 6:00 p.m., while food stalls, food trucks and children's games filled the grounds. A local committee and the hall's support association organize it, and the program changes from year to year, so check the temple's notices before going.

Visiting Choonji Temple

Choonji Temple does not publish opening hours or an admission fee. The exteriors of the Kannon Hall and the main gate can be seen from the grounds, but this is a working parish temple where memorial services take place, so keep voices low and stay out of the way of any ceremony. If you hope to see inside the hall or are coming as a group, call the temple first (0258-82-3292).

By public transport, take an Echigo Kotsu bus on the Ojiya Shako-mae to Nagaoka Ekimae line that runs via Kowada, and get off at the Kowada stop. Online maps put the walk from the stop to Chōonji at about 4 minutes. The temple is roughly 3 kilometers northwest of JR Ojiya Station on the Joetsu Line, measured in a straight line.

By car, Ojiya City says the temple is about 10 minutes from the Ojiya Interchange on the Kan-etsu Expressway.