Anyoin Temple Amida Hall

A Hall on a Rough Stone Platform

Anyoin Temple Amida Hall (安養院阿弥陀堂, An'yōin Amida-dō) is a Buddhist hall at Anyoin, a sub-temple of Saikyoji in Sakamoto-honmachi, Otsu City, Shiga Prefecture; it was built in 1934 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2001.

It stands on the west side of the grounds, facing east, on a platform of irregular fieldstones. The hall is a single-storey timber building with an Irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable roof in Sangawara-buki pantiles and a building area of 97 square metres, second only to the priests' quarters among Anyoin's buildings.

It belongs to the early Shōwa rebuilding of the temple, and the storehouse beside it on the north went up in the same year.

Why Anyoin Temple Amida Hall Was Registered

The hall was registered as a model of form. The Agency for Cultural Affairs explains that Anyoin Temple Amida Hall was designed with the Hōjō of Zen temples in mind, while its interior spaces and details show modern elements.

A hōjō is the building in a Zen monastery that houses the abbot and hosts ceremonies, and it typically has a veranda all the way round with a deeper veranda at the front. Anyoin Temple Amida Hall follows that pattern, with a Kirime-en veranda on all four sides and the front bay given over to a wide veranda. A hall at a sub-temple of a Tendai-line head temple borrowing the outline of a Zen abbot's quarters is what makes it distinctive.

It is not a copy, though. The handling of the interior and many of the details belong to the early Shōwa period, so the building reads as an early Shōwa temple hall that uses a traditional template rather than one that reproduces it.

What to Look for at Anyoin Temple Amida Hall

Begin at ground level. The platform is built of stones of every shape, fitted together rather than cut to size, and the effect is far rougher than the dressed stone bases seen at many temples. The timber hall sits squarely on top of it.

Then follow the veranda. In a kirime-en the boards run at right angles to the wall, so their end grain lines the outer edge. Compare the narrow veranda on the sides with the deeper one across the front and the hōjō-like plan becomes easy to see.

Because the hall faces east, its front catches the sun in the morning, when the shadows of the gable and the veranda are at their sharpest.

Visiting Anyoin Temple Amida Hall

No openings of the interior of Anyoin Temple Amida Hall have been announced, so the modern details inside are not something ordinary visitors can expect to see. If the temple allows you into the grounds, the east side, in front of the hall, gives the clearest view of the veranda arrangement and the roof, along with the storehouse standing next to it.

Photography rules have not been published, so ask the temple before taking pictures. Directions are on the page for Anyoin as a whole.