Hiraizumi

Overview

Hiraizumi is a town in Iwate Prefecture, northern Japan, whose Buddhist temples and gardens form a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its temples Chūson-ji and Mōtsū-ji are active places of worship, built to represent the Pure Land, a paradise described in Buddhist teaching. Monks hold daily services, and pilgrims visit the gold-covered Konjikidō hall at Chūson-ji.

Present

Chūson-ji and Mōtsū-ji are temples of the Tendai school of Japanese Buddhism, and monks hold daily services at both. The Konjikidō, the gilded 12th-century hall at Chūson-ji, is enclosed in a protective concrete building and can be viewed by worshippers and visitors. The World Heritage property comprises five components: Chūson-ji, Mōtsū-ji, the archaeological remains of the temples Kanjizaiō-in and Muryōkō-in, and Mount Kinkeisan, a small hill regarded in local tradition as sacred. The garden at Mōtsū-ji has been restored on the basis of excavations, and the remains of the other gardens are preserved as archaeological sites. In 2011 UNESCO designated Hiraizumi a World Heritage Site.

Religious Significance

Hiraizumi was built as an earthly representation of the Pure Land, the paradise of Amida, the Buddha of Infinite Light. In Pure Land Buddhism, followers aspire to rebirth in this paradise after death. In the 12th century, Fujiwara no Kiyohira, ruler of northern Japan, founded the temple complex at Hiraizumi to pray for all who had died in the wars that devastated the region, on both sides of the fighting, and to create a realm of peace shaped by Buddhist ideals. His son and grandson continued the work.

The temples were laid out with gardens centered on ponds, designed as visible images of the Pure Land, and three of the gardens are aligned with Mount Kinkeisan. It is said that a pair of golden chickens lies buried on the mountain to protect Hiraizumi. The Konjikidō at Chūson-ji enshrines Amida and expresses the radiance of his paradise in gold. Worship of Amida continues at both temples, and pilgrims visit the Konjikidō as the spiritual center of the site.

History & Structure

According to Buddhist tradition, the monk Ennin founded Chūson-ji in 850 CE. Large-scale construction began in the early 12th century under Fujiwara no Kiyohira. The Konjikidō, completed in 1124, is a hall about 5.5 meters on each side, covered inside and out in gold leaf and decorated with lacquer and mother-of-pearl inlay. It contains the remains of the first three Fujiwara rulers and enshrines Amida with attendant statues. Mōtsū-ji was built in the 12th century by Kiyohira's son and grandson, and its garden around the Ōizumi-ga-ike pond survives from that period; its main hall is a modern reconstruction. In 1189, forces led by Minamoto no Yoritomo, the warrior who then founded Japan's first military government, destroyed Hiraizumi, and a fire in 1337 destroyed most of Chūson-ji's buildings. The Konjikidō survived both, and around 90 percent of its original structure and materials are preserved. In 2011 UNESCO designated Hiraizumi a World Heritage Site.

Additional Resources

• Official website: Chūson-ji Temple
• UNESCO: Hiraizumi – Temples, Gardens and Archaeological Sites Representing the Buddhist Pure Land
• Book: Hiraizumi: Buddhist Art and Regional Politics in Twelfth-Century Japan by Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan (1998)