Jozenji Temple Bell Tower

What the Jozenji Temple Bell Tower is

Jozenji Temple Bell Tower (上善寺鐘楼, Jōzen-ji Shōrō) is a belfry built in 1797 at Jozenji in Sakaemachi, Izumisano City, Osaka Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on July 8, 2008, under registration number 27-0504.

A shōrō is the structure from which a temple's great bronze bell hangs. This one stands south of the main hall with its ridge running north to south. It has no walls at all: posts and a roof are all that hold the bell.

It measures 3.9 metres by 3.6 metres, with an area of 16 square metres, the smallest recorded area among Jozenji's registered buildings, under a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof in Hongawarabuki tiling. Izumisano City's official tourism site says the bell is rung here every year for joya no kane, the tolling that carries the old year into the new on the night of December 31.

Splayed posts and carved beasts

Jozenji Temple Bell Tower was registered as a model of architectural form.

It rises from a platform of dressed stone blocks. The round posts are set in the technique called shihō-korobi, each one leaning slightly inward toward the top, which gives the frame a firmer stance against the weight and swing of the bell. Tie beams and a head plate lock the posts together, and each post carries a set of Mitsudo-gumi three-block brackets.

In the gables a Taiheizuka strut stands on a curved Kōryō beam, and the eaves use two tiers of closely spaced rafters. For so small a building, it keeps the full vocabulary of formal temple carpentry.

The carving is the other half of the case. The Oigata scrolls flanking the gable strut, the kibana beam-ends projecting from the post heads and the panels set between the bracket sets hold carvings of baku, lions and other creatures, work the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes as of good quality.

What to look for

Step back first and check the lean of the posts. The four posts draw slightly together as they rise, giving the whole frame a trapezoidal outline.

Then look at the beam-ends. The timbers that jut sideways from the post heads finish in carved heads of baku and lions. The baku, a mythical beast with a trunk-like snout and small eyes, is easy to tell apart from the lions once you compare them side by side.

From the gable end, the arched curve of the beam, the strut above it and the carved scrolls on either side combine into a single panel. After more than 200 years since 1797, it is worth noticing how crisp the carved edges still are.

Visiting the Jozenji Temple Bell Tower

With no walls, the bell tower can be studied from every side from within the grounds during the temple's opening hours. There is no published permission to ring the bell, so leave it alone.

Times and arrangements for the New Year's Eve bell-ringing may change each year, so check with the temple beforehand if you plan to visit on December 31. No policy on photography has been published.

Directions to the temple and its opening hours are covered on the Jozenji page.