Kozanji Temple

Kozanji Temple

Kozanji Temple (功山寺) in Chofu Kawabata, Shimonoseki City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, holds a Buddha hall dated by an inscription of 1320, designated a National Treasure on November 14, 1953, and a Muromachi-period main gate, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on July 23, 2004 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency says the temple was founded in 1327 by the priest Koan Genjaku, at first under another name. The Yamaguchi tourism site presents it as a Soto Zen temple opened six years before the fall of the Kamakura shogunate, known too as the place where Takasugi Shinsaku raised his troops, with Mori family graves and a study hall linked to the end of the Edo period.

The Two Structures

The Buddha hall is three bays square with a pent roof under hip-and-gable cypress bark; an ink inscription on a column of the inner sanctuary dates the raising of its pillars to 1320, earlier than the temple itself. The Agency values it highly as a typical Zen-style Buddha hall.

The main gate is a Zen-style four-legged gate with posts rising to the ridge, at the east front of the precinct; its eaves are much altered, but the frame keeps the form of the mid-Muromachi period (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Passing through the gate towards the hall, visitors still meet the layout of a medieval Zen temple. Each structure is described on its own page.

Visiting

According to the Yamaguchi tourism site, the grounds are free to enter; the study hall opens from 9:00 to 17:00 for 300 yen (100 yen for junior and senior high school students, free for younger children). Take a bus from JR Chofu Station (about 10 minutes) or JR Shimonoseki Station (about 23 minutes) to Jokamachi Chofu, then walk about 10 minutes. There is a small free car park.