Jodoji Temple Main Hall

About the Jodoji Temple Main Hall

The Jodoji Temple Main Hall (浄土寺本堂, Jōdo-ji Hondō) in Oji Nishimachi, Oita City, is a Buddhist worship hall rebuilt in 1849, and it became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 23 October 2008.

The hall stands just south of the centre of the temple grounds and faces east. It measures 7 ken, or seven bays, across the front, with a hip-and-gable (Irimoya-zukuri) roof laid in heavy round-and-flat tiles (Hongawarabuki) and a 1-ken porch roof, or Kōhai, projecting over the steps. The timber, single-storey building covers 454 square metres, making it by far the largest of the seven registered structures at Jodoji.

It is the product of a long recovery. In 1773 a neighbourhood fire spread to the temple and burned it to the ground, and it took the congregation more than seventy years to raise this hall. The building was renovated in 1980.

Why It Was Registered

The Jodoji Main Hall was registered in the 61st round on 23 October 2008 as number 44-0149, under the criterion of being a model of design.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs points to two things. First, the plan: a broad outer hall (Gejin) where worshippers sit, side bays to its left and right, and an inner sanctuary (Naijin) that pushes forward into the outer hall in a T-like projection. This is the textbook layout of a Jodo-sect main hall. Second, the decoration around the four inner pillars of the sanctuary, where layered brackets (Kumimono) and curved infill panels (Shirin) are worked with far more care than structure requires.

Many regional temples have one or the other, a correct plan or a showpiece of carpentry. The Jodoji Main Hall has both, at a scale that few parish temples in the area attempted.

What to Look For

Verandas on three sides

A wide Engawa veranda runs across the front and along both sides, carried at its outer edge by a row of eave posts. Walk around the hall and you will find the veranda turning from the east front onto the north and south sides, then stopping: the west wall at the back has none.

A sanctuary that steps forward

Inside, the outer hall is laid with tatami, side rooms open to left and right, and the sanctuary holding the principal image sits at the back. At Jodoji the sanctuary juts out toward the congregation. The effect is to bring the altar closer, so that even a worshipper at the back of the outer hall does not feel far from it.

Brackets above the four pillars

The four pillars that frame the sanctuary carry stacked brackets at their tops, and the gap between the brackets and the ceiling is closed with carved shirin. This is the passage the Agency describes as richly decorative, and it sits squarely in view from the outer hall.

"Seven bays" or "twelve ken"?

The national database calls Jodoji a seven-bay hall, while the temple's own history describes "a great hall twelve ken on each side." The first figure counts the spaces between pillars across the front; the second appears to express the overall size in units of length. They are probably two ways of measuring the same building rather than a contradiction.

The Heisei restoration

A five-year restoration began in 2008. According to the temple, ground subsidence had damaged the hall, and the repairs kept the old pillars and roof timbers while adding seismic reinforcement to the building and to the ground beneath it, down to a depth of 5 metres.

Visiting the Main Hall

The Jodoji Main Hall is still in daily use for memorial services and funerals. You can take in the whole east front as soon as you pass through the Front Gate; step back toward the eastern side of the forecourt to see how the great tiled roof sits over the porch.

To see the brackets of the sanctuary up close, or to photograph the interior, ask the temple office in advance (097-532-3534). As of October 2026 there was no published schedule for interior viewing and no admission fee. If a service is under way, stay outside and keep your voice down.