Anyoin Temple Shoten Hall

The Oldest Buddhist Hall at Anyoin

Anyoin Temple Shoten Hall (安養院聖天堂, An'yōin Shōten-dō) is a Buddhist hall at Anyoin, a sub-temple of Saikyoji in Sakamoto-honmachi, Otsu City, Shiga Prefecture; it is thought to date from the late Edo period, between 1751 and 1829, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2001.

Shōten, also called Kangiten, is a protective deity in Japanese Buddhism, and the hall takes its name from him. With a building area of 55 square metres, it is the oldest Buddhist hall among the nine registered buildings at Anyoin.

Two clues date it. The hall appears on a picture map from the Tenpō era (1830 to 1844), and its detailing points the same way. When the buildings around it were replaced in the early Shōwa rebuilding, Anyoin Temple Shoten Hall was kept, and it now stands in the southern part of the grounds surrounded by newer neighbours.

Why Anyoin Temple Shoten Hall Was Registered

The plan is built around an inner sanctuary, the Naijin, with an outer worship room, the Gejin, projecting forward from it. A kitchen is attached on the right and the shoin on the left.

The two main parts are built in completely different ways. The naijin follows Dozo-zukuri earthen-walled construction under a pyramidal Hōgyō-zukuri roof, while the gejin is a timber room with an Irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable roof. A thick-walled square core has a timber hall set against its front, with further buildings joined at either side.

Anyoin Temple Shoten Hall is the only one of the nine buildings registered because it would not be easy to reproduce. The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls it a complex and unusual hall that handles its disparate parts with skill. Bringing roofs and walls of different kinds together into one building takes the sort of joinery that is hard to repeat.

What to Look for at Anyoin Temple Shoten Hall

Watch the roofs. At the back, the pyramidal roof over the earthen-walled sanctuary rises to a single point; in front, the hip-and-gable roof of the worship room spreads sideways. Two roofs of different character overlap to form the outline of one hall.

No record explains why the sanctuary was built as an earthen-walled structure. Walls of that kind resist fire, though, and enclosing the heart of the hall this way may have been meant to protect what it holds.

Notice the connections too. Besides the kitchen on the right and the shoin on the left, a roofed corridor runs from the west side to the worship hall. The Shoten Hall sits at the centre of that small cluster.

Visiting Anyoin Temple Shoten Hall

No openings of the interior of Anyoin Temple Shoten Hall have been announced, so the sanctuary and worship room cannot be expected to be seen.

If the temple lets you into the grounds, stand back far enough to see the pyramidal and hip-and-gable roofs overlapping. Because other buildings are attached on both sides, no single spot shows the whole hall; moving between the shoin side and the worship hall side makes the connections clear. Photography rules have not been published, so ask the temple first.