Hofukuji Temple Akibagu Shrine Main Hall

Hofukuji Temple Akibagu Shrine Main Hall: Cloud Dragons on a Single-Bay Sanctuary

The Hofukuji Temple Akibagu Shrine Main Hall (寶福寺秋葉宮本殿, Hōfukuji Akiba-gū Honden) is a mid-Meiji-era shrine building on the wooded northwest slope of Hōfukuji, a Zen temple in Ijirino, Soja City, Okayama Prefecture, and it became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on April 28, 2009.

It is tiny. The sanctuary measures a single bay on each side and covers 6.1 square meters, yet it carries a hip-and-gable roof in the Irimoya-zukuri manner, laid with heavy Hongawarabuki tiles, a one-bay porch roof (Kōhai) projecting over the steps, and a veranda with railings wrapped around all four sides. It faces south from a terrace above the main temple grounds, and it is the innermost of the buildings that make up the Akibagu, the small shrine precinct that Hofukuji maintains within its own grounds.

A Shinto-style sanctuary inside a Zen compound may surprise first-time visitors, but Buddhist temples in Japan often keep a shrine to a protective deity. Akiba shrines across the country are generally associated with protection from fire. Okayama Prefecture notes that Akiba and Konpira are also honored as the temple's guardian deities on the 247.4 m summit of Mount Akiba, the hill rising behind Hofukuji; the registered Akibagu sits much lower, on a terrace just above the temple buildings.

Hofukuji, a temple of the Tofukuji branch of Rinzai Zen, lost most of its halls in the Bitchu fighting of 1575 and was rebuilt piece by piece from the Edo period onward with help from local lords, wealthy merchants and successive abbots. Its 24 registered structures range from the mid-Edo period to the Meiji era, and all 5 at the Akibagu belong to the Meiji end of that span.

Why the Main Hall Was Registered

The Hofukuji Temple Akibagu Shrine Main Hall was registered under the criterion of buildings that serve as a model of design. The Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out two things: the well-balanced proportions of so small a building, and the carving of cloud-wreathed dragons on the porch-beam ends and on the tail rafters at the roof corners.

The structure explains the praise. Round columns carry two-stepped bracket sets (futetesaki) placed not only on the columns but between them as well, pushing the eaves out in two stages. Above them run 2 tiers of closely spaced rafters. Fitting this much joinery onto a sanctuary a single bay wide means every member must be cut small and set out precisely; at this scale there is nowhere for sloppy work to hide.

Hofukuji's buildings entered the register in 2 batches: 6 structures, including the abbot's quarters and the priests' quarters, on January 8, 2009, and 18 more, including the Buddha Hall and the Main Gate, on April 28 of the same year. All 5 Akibagu structures belong to the second group. The main hall's registration number is 33-0223.

What to Look For

Start at the corners of the porch. The beam ends that project beyond the columns are carved in the round as dragon heads rising out of curling cloud. Then look up at the four corners of the roof, where the tail rafters end in the same motif. For a building of this size, the density of carving at the Hofukuji Temple Akibagu Shrine Main Hall is high, and the dragons read differently from the front than from a three-quarter angle.

Follow the roofline next. Under the gable, the double-stepped brackets thrust the eaves forward, and the close rafters cast a fine striped shadow on the underside of the eaves when the afternoon sun comes round.

The worship hall stands directly in front, and a connecting hall projects from its rear center to meet the sanctuary, so the main hall is always seen beyond other roofs. Behind it, on a long stone platform, stand the 5 small stone shrines of the Gosha Myojingu, dated 1892. Keeping that front-to-back sequence of worship hall, connecting hall, sanctuary and stone shrines in mind is the key to reading this compact precinct.

Visiting

The Hofukuji Temple Akibagu Shrine Main Hall stands inside the temple grounds, which are open from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. Okayama's official tourism site lists fees only for zazen sessions and gives no admission charge for the grounds. There is no announcement of the sanctuary interior being opened, so a visit means viewing the exterior.

From the Buddha Hall, head northwest and climb the long stone stairway flanked by retaining walls; it rises in 3 main flights with a stone gateway partway up. The worship hall waits at the top, and the main hall lies beyond it.

The nearest station is JR Soja, about half an hour's walk away. Drivers can reach the temple in roughly a quarter of an hour from the Okayama Soja interchange on the Okayama Expressway; the parking area holds 75 cars. Neither the temple nor the tourism pages post rules on photography, but it is courteous to put the camera away during rites.