Kaimonzan Mangetsuji Temple

A Zen temple that reaches into the lake

Kaimonzan Mangetsuji Temple (海門山満月寺, also written Mangetsu-ji) is a Rinzai Zen temple of the Daitokuji branch on the shore of Lake Biwa in Honkatata, Otsu, Shiga Prefecture, said to have been founded in the Chotoku era (995 to 999) by the monk Genshin, and five of its buildings were listed as Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2000. Most visitors know it by the name of its lake hall, the Ukimido or "floating hall," and local tourism signs often put that name first.

The founding story runs like this. Genshin, looking down on the lake from Mount Hiei, noticed that one patch of water glowed night after night. He had it netted, and up came a small golden image of Amida. To honour it he is said to have carved a thousand Amida figures and housed them in a hall built out over the water, and the temple has been tied to prayers for safe passage on the lake ever since.

Kaimonzan Mangetsuji Temple later fell into long neglect. Two Edo-period monks from Daitokuji in Kyoto, Shonan Sogen and Daichu Sohan, revived it, and it became a Zen temple at that point. That is why a site traced to a Tendai monk now belongs to the Rinzai school.

The setting of Katata no Rakugan

By the Edo period the hall that seems to float on the lake had become the emblem of Katata. It appears in the 1797 guidebook Ise Sangu Meisho Zue, and Utagawa Hiroshige made it the backdrop for Katata no Rakugan (Wild Geese Returning at Katata), one of his Eight Views of Omi prints.

Poets came too. Matsuo Basho, after an evening of moon-viewing at his hut at Gichuji, crossed to Katata by boat the next day and wrote a haiku asking the hall to unlock its doors and let the moonlight in. A stone carved with that verse stands in the grounds, and near the gate is another stone bearing a poem by the Showa-era haiku poet Awano Seiho about the hall in the early summer rains.

The view beyond the hall is part of the draw. On a clear day you can pick out Mount Mikami, Mount Ibuki, Mount Chomeiji and Okishima island to the east, with the Hira range and Mount Hiei to the west. Late in the day, the hall's outline against the reddening water has long been a favourite scene.

Why five buildings were listed together

Five buildings in the precinct, the Ukimido, the Kannon Hall, the Guest Hall, the Main Gate and the Gyokukotei tea house, were entered together on the national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Property on April 28, 2000. Their register numbers run in sequence from 25-0126 to 25-0130.

More than 180 years separate the oldest from the youngest. The Guest Hall dates from 1754, the Kannon Hall from 1766 and the Main Gate from 1812. The present Ukimido replaced a hall toppled by the Muroto typhoon of 1934 and was completed in 1937; the Gyokukotei tea house went up the same year, reusing some timber from the fallen hall.

The five were listed under two different criteria. The Ukimido, the Kannon Hall and the Main Gate were recognised for contributing to the historic landscape, while the Guest Hall and the tea house were recognised as models of their building types. Put simply, the lake hall, the main worship hall and the gate form the temple's silhouette, and the other two are valued as textbook examples of their forms.

The Kannon Hall, which serves as the main hall, enshrines a seated wooden figure of Sho Kannon from the Heian period. The statue is separately designated by the national government as a sculpture, under a different framework from the building listings.

Walking the grounds

The entrance to Kaimonzan Mangetsuji Temple is the Main Gate in the northwest corner, which faces west. It is a two-storey gate in the ryugu-zukuri style, its lower level wrapped in a white plaster skirt, and it has no doors. Look straight through it and the Ukimido sits dead ahead on the water to the east; that single line of sight organises the whole precinct.

The Guest Hall faces east toward the lake, with a formal entrance porch on its north side. The Gyokukotei tea house was moved to its present spot from south of the Guest Hall in 1988. To reach the Ukimido you walk out along a stone bridge about 17 metres long. All five buildings, the Kannon Hall included, lie within a few dozen paces of one another.

The grounds are compact. For the classic frontal view of the lake hall, stand on the gate's axis; for a side view, go to the shore end of the bridge. At dawn the sun rises out of the lake behind the hall and turns it into a silhouette.

Visiting and getting there

The temple is open daily between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., closing at 4:30 p.m. in December, with no closing days. Admission is 300 yen, or 280 yen per person for groups of 30 or more. Enquiries go to Mangetsuji Ukimido on 077-572-0455.

The Sho Kannon statue in the Kannon Hall is not shown to the public. No official statement on photography from the temple or the tourism bodies could be found, so if you plan to use a tripod or photograph images inside a hall, ask at the reception first.

By train, take the JR Kosei Line to Katata Station, then a local bus to the Katata Demachi stop (listed in some guides simply as Demachi); the temple is a 5 to 7 minute walk from there. On Saturdays and Sundays some buses run closer to the Ukimido. By car, the temple is about 10 minutes from the Mano interchange on the Kosei Road, and there is a car park nearby; guides give its capacity as either 25 or 30 cars.