Kangakuin Guest Hall

One Building, National Treasure since 1952

Kangakuin Guest Hall (勧学院客殿, Kangakuin Kyakuden) is a Momoyama-period structure at Onjoji-cho, Otsu City, Shiga Prefecture, made an Important Cultural Property on 27 March 1901 and designated a National Treasure on 22 November 1952. The quantity is one building, the designation number 00079, and the owner Onjoji.

The date is the fifth year of Keicho, 1600. The earlier listing falls on the same day as the Shinra Zenshindo, and the designation on the same day as the Fumi no Nemaro material.

The temple's name does not appear in the title. Unlike the golden hall and the Shinra Zenshindo, this building stands under the name of its sub-temple alone, though Onjoji owns it.

A Third Category within One Temple

The category field reads pre-modern, residence.

The golden hall is filed under temples and the Shinra Zenshindo under shrines. This makes a third.

Buildings of one temple fall under three categories: temple, shrine and residence. All three belong to Onjoji.

A guest hall receives visitors and belongs with dwellings. The temple records that, together with the guest hall of another sub-temple, it is a well-known example of the shoin style, which is a style of residence.

At Kankiin, three categories stood in one precinct: National Treasure, Important Cultural Property and registered tangible cultural property. Those were grades of listing. These three at Onjoji differ by what kind of building each is.

Hall and Gate Counted Together as One

The structural field describes two buildings.

After the hall, seven bays by seven, single-storeyed, with a hip-and-gable roof entered from the gable end and a curved gable over the front eaves, it records a middle gate one bay by one bay, single-storeyed, with a gabled roof, the whole roofed in shingle.

Hall and gate are both measured, and the quantity is still one building.

At Himeji Castle, four buildings shared one title and each counted as one. At Aoi Aso Shrine, five were counted separately.

Here a hall and a gate are treated as a single unit. What counts as one varies from property to property.

The Paintings Have Left the Building, and a Room Stands Abroad

The temple's record says two things about the interior.

First, the interior consists of nine rooms in three ranks, and the first and second rooms of the southern rank, with their raised alcove, carried brilliant partition paintings by Kano Mitsunobu.

Then: they are now held and shown in the temple's cultural properties repository. The paintings have left the building and are displayed elsewhere.

The gilt bronze phoenix was taken off a building and became a craft object. The Zuiryuji incense container was made from timber removed in repair. Here what was removed is shown elsewhere in its own form.

The record adds that the first room was reproduced at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1985.

Copies, replicas and reconstructions have all appeared here. A room reproduced abroad is new.

Visiting

The hall stands at Onjoji-cho, Otsu City, Shiga Prefecture, owned by the temple. It stands in the precinct, and access follows the temple's own arrangements.

The temple records that the sub-temple was founded in 1312 as the temple's place of study and was known as a hall of great learning.

Of the present hall: after the confiscation of temple lands under Toyotomi Hideyoshi, it was built in 1600 by Mori Terumoto. The year in the date field is the year of that building.

The commentary field in the national database is empty, the third such case after the golden hall and the Shinra Zenshindo. The record states expressly that nothing is designated as an appendage.

Access to the interior follows the temple's own arrangements. Check before travelling.