Hokoji Temple

About Hokoji Temple

Hokoji Temple (方広寺), in the Okuyama district of Inasa-cho in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, is the head monastery of the Hokoji branch of Rinzai Zen and was founded in 1371 by the priest Mumon Gensen. Its mountain name is Jinnozan, and it is widely known as Okuyama Hansobo after the guardian deity enshrined on its grounds.

Some thirty halls, gates and towers are scattered across roughly 60 hectares of wooded hillside. Twenty-two of them were entered in the national register of tangible cultural properties on 10 September 2019 as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties, and the small Shichison Bosatsudo, built in the Muromachi period, was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1954. Few temples in Japan carry more than twenty registered buildings on one site.

Almost all of the registered buildings at Hokoji Temple went up between the 1880s and the 1930s, so a walk through the grounds is also a walk through seventy years of monastery building.

The founder and the Hansobo legend

Mumon Gensen (1323 to 1390), the founder of Hokoji Temple, was a son of Emperor Go-Daigo. He took the tonsure at Kenninji in Kyoto at eighteen, sailed to Yuan China in 1345 and trained there under the master Gubai Shoyu. After returning to Japan he accepted an invitation from Okuyama Rokurojiro Tomofuji, the local lord, who gave him land and buildings in Okuyama. Tomofuji is honoured as the temple's patron founder.

The name Hokoji is said to come from a monastery of the same name on Mount Tiantai in China, whose setting the priest thought the Okuyama valley resembled.

What carried the temple's reputation across Japan was its guardian, Hansobo Daigongen. According to the temple's own account, a sharp-eyed stranger in monastic robes appeared aboard Mumon Gensen's storm-struck ship in the East China Sea and steered it safely into Hakata, then later came to Okuyama to become his disciple. After the founder's death the stranger vanished, promising to guard the mountain and to lift misfortune from those who came. Pilgrims still climb to Hokoji Temple to pray for protection from fire, accident and disaster at sea.

The fire of 1881 and the rebuilding

Hokoji Temple burned more than once. The worst loss came in 1881, when a forest fire swept the hillside and destroyed most of the halls. Shizuoka Prefecture's cultural property record states that only the Shichison Bosatsudo, dated by an inscribed ridge tablet to 1401, came through unharmed. It is regarded as the oldest wooden building in the prefecture, a tiny hall with a nagare-zukuri roof of split shingles, sheltered inside a plain protective cover.

Reconstruction began quickly. The Hansobo Hall of Worship was standing by 1886, and the Shinden, the Amulet Office, the Kagura Hall and the Purification Pavilion followed through the 1880s and 1890s. The Main Hall dates from 1915, the Three-Storied Pagoda from 1923 and the Founder's Hall from 1935. The spread of dates among the buildings of Hokoji Temple is the record of that long recovery.

Walking the grounds

The approach to Hokoji Temple starts at the Somon, the black outer gate of the mid-Meiji period. Beyond it stands the vermilion Sanmon, known locally as the red gate, and from there the path climbs. Stone figures of the five hundred arhats line the way, seated on steps and stream banks. Their installation began in 1770 at the wish of the priest Setsugan.

Partway up, the path forks. The left branch is the quieter Tetsugaku-no-michi, or philosopher's path. Cross the red Kihaikyo bridge and the Main Hall is close. West of it come the Kannon Hall and the Founder's Hall; swing north-west and you reach the Hansobo Shinden and its Hall of Worship, with the Kagura Hall and the Purification Pavilion facing each other in the forecourt. The Three-Storied Pagoda stands apart on a summit south of the valley, visible from the Main Hall terrace.

Allow at least an hour for a full circuit, and expect slopes and stone steps throughout. A road runs up to the foot of the pagoda for visitors who would rather not climb.

Visiting Hokoji Temple

Hokoji Temple is open every day of the year. Admission is 700 yen for adults and 300 yen for elementary and junior high school students, and includes entry to the halls. Groups of 30 or more pay 630 and 270 yen. Visitors presenting a disability certificate pay 350 and 150 yen. Combination tickets with nearby Ryotanji Temple and the Ryugashido Cavern are also sold.

The gate opens at 9:00 a.m. Sources differ on closing, giving either 4:00 p.m. or 4:30 p.m., with last admission half an hour earlier. For a late-afternoon visit it is worth calling ahead on 053-543-0003. Prices and hours were checked on 14 September 2026.

From JR Hamamatsu Station, take the bus bound for Okuyama from stand 15 at the north exit terminal and ride to the last stop, Okuyama. The trip takes about 60 minutes and costs 630 yen. By car it is roughly 8 minutes from the Hamamatsu-Inasa interchange on the Shin-Tomei Expressway, and free parking sits just below the main approach.

The temple year

The best known event at Hokoji Temple is the Okuyama Hansobo grand festival in October, when a long prayer service is followed by a procession of portable shrine and costumed children through the grounds. On 16 February the fire festival draws on Hansobo's reputation as a protector against fire, and participants walk barefoot across the embers.

The founder's memorial services fall on 21 and 22 April, and a service honouring the patron Tomofuji is held on 15 March. The arhats receive their own offering service on 3 November. Hokoji Temple also runs seated meditation, sutra copying, vegetarian temple meals and weekend lodging, and on major festival days the visitor route through the grounds may be altered.