Jozenji Temple Front Gate

What the Jozenji Temple Front Gate is

Jozenji Temple Front Gate (上善寺表門, Jōzen-ji Omotemon) is an early-Meiji Shikyakumon, or four-legged gate, at the entrance of Jozenji in Sakaemachi, Izumisano City, Osaka Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on July 8, 2008, under registration number 27-0505.

The gate stands directly in front of the main hall and faces west onto the street. It has a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof in Hongawarabuki tiling and a frontage of 3.5 metres. Two round main posts carry the roof, each braced front and back by a square-section supporting post.

On dating, the Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives the period as early Meiji but fills its Western-calendar field with the whole Meiji era, 1868 to 1911. This page follows the period label. Of the six registered buildings at Jozenji, the front gate is the only one built after the Edo period.

A gate filled with carving

Jozenji Temple Front Gate is the only one of the six buildings registered as a structure that would be difficult to reproduce, and the reason is the density of its carving.

The posts carry Mitsudo-gumi three-block brackets. In the gables, a Taiheizuka strut rises from a curved Kōryō beam to hold up the ridge, and the eaves use two tiers of closely spaced rafters, which makes the roof edge look heavy for a gate of this size. Double-leaf panelled doors fill the central opening.

The spaces between the bracket sets and the panels above the doors are packed with plant motifs and animal carvings, which the national database describes as filling those surfaces. Izumisano City's official tourism site points visitors to the carvings of the twelve zodiac animals set beneath the roof.

By the Meiji era, finding both carvers able to do this work and patrons willing to pay for it was no small thing, and reproducing the gate with the same care today would be harder still. That is what the registration criterion records.

What to look for

Begin on the street side and take in the whole gate: the gable roof spreading left and right, and below it the four legs, round posts in the middle and square posts front and back. Line yourself up so the main hall shows through the opening, and the straight west-east axis of the temple becomes obvious.

Then step underneath and look up. The carving between the brackets and above the doors is hard to read from any distance. Hunting for the zodiac animals one by one shows how the depth and direction of the cutting change with each panel.

If you arrive when the doors are closed, the framed doors and the carving above them read as a single decorated surface, a different effect from the open gate.

Visiting the Jozenji Temple Front Gate

Because the gate faces the street, its outer side can be seen at any time. During the temple's opening hours you can pass through and view it from inside the grounds without booking.

The gate faces west, so its outer face is lit in the afternoon, and low evening light brings out the relief in the carving. There is no published policy on photography; the gate stands on a public street, so keep clear of passing traffic and pedestrians.

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