Daizenji Temple Main Hall

One Hall, National Treasure since 1955

Daizenji Temple Main Hall (大善寺本堂, Daizenji Hondo) is a Kamakura-period structure at Katsunuma-cho, Koshu City, Yamanashi Prefecture, made an Important Cultural Property on 28 August 1907 and designated a National Treasure on 22 June 1955. The quantity is one building and the owner the temple.

Both dates are exactly those of the Seihakuji Buddha hall. Both stand in Yamanashi Prefecture, at different temples.

Yamanashi Prefecture records the hall as five bays in each direction, under a broad hipped roof of cypress bark, with a plank veranda running round it. Its principal image is a healing Buddha, so the hall is also called by that Buddha's name.

How the Building Was Paid For Is Recorded

The prefecture's account includes the raising of funds.

In 1284 Hojo Sadatoki of the Kamakura shogunate solicited subscriptions, and ten mon was levied on each household across the two provinces of Kai and Shinano to meet the cost.

The levy fell household by household. Two provinces contributed, ten mon from each home, and the money went into the building.

At Kankiin, the assessment noted that the work was achieved through popular devotion: a statement of whose effort raised the building.

Here the record gives the amount and where it came from. Funding set down in this way appears for the first time.

The man who called for the subscriptions was Hojo Sadatoki, so the initiative came from the shogunate's side.

Three Years Mark the Course of the Work

The stages of building are recorded in order.

Subscriptions were raised in 1284. The pillars were set up in 1286. The hall was completed in 1290, six years after the work began.

Three years for three stages. Setting up the pillars is the raising of the frame.

At the Myooin pagoda, the day the finial rings were raised could be fixed: one operation, one date.

Here three stages are dated and the total time is stated as well. The progress of the work can be followed.

The reason for rebuilding is given too: the present hall followed a fire of 1270. Fourteen years passed between that fire and the raising of subscriptions.

The Date Is Cut into the Pillars

The evidence for the date is named.

The date of building is confirmed by an inscription reading the sixteenth day of the third month of the ninth year of Koan, cut into both corner pillars at the rear of the hall.

Two corner pillars at the back carry the date. The characters are on the very timbers that hold the building up.

At the Himeji Castle turrets the evidence was an ink inscription; at the Fudoin main hall an inscription on a ceiling painting; at the Myooin pagoda an inscription on the finial.

Here it is a pillar. Where the dating characters sit differs from property to property.

The temple's name has changed as well: it was formerly called Kashio-dera or Kashiosan-dera. Its earliest appearance in the sources is an inscription of 1103 on a bronze sutra container, itself an Important Cultural Property. That first record of the name is also a cut inscription.

Visiting

The hall stands at Katsunuma-cho, Koshu City, Yamanashi Prefecture, owned by the temple. It stands in the precinct and its exterior can be seen on a visit.

The details are recorded: thick round pillars carry two-tiered bracket sets with supporting arms, curved boards close the space above the eaves, and short struts stand between the brackets. The eaves have closely set rafters in two tiers and project deeply.

Of style: the structure follows the old native manner throughout, while the beam-end carvings on the tie-beams use the linked-arc mouldings of the great Buddha style, marking an early appearance of that newer manner in the east of the country.

A new manner sits within an old one. The Myooin main hall mixed native and Chinese manners, the Jodoji main hall native, Chinese and Indian. Here it is native with the great Buddha style.

The inner sanctuary holds an early Heian wooden healing Buddha with two attendant figures, all Important Cultural Properties. Access to the interior follows the temple's own arrangements. Check before travelling.