Kyoto a Cultural Guide. John H. Martin
this main structure is a memorial hall to the Japanese war dead with a file of the names of all those who died in the years of the Japanese wars of the 1930s and 1940s. To the north of the main temple building is an eight-foot-long memorial footprint of the Buddha, and west of that is a five-foot-tall gold sphere. Beyond, to the north, is a garden. To the south of the main Kannon structure is a memorial hall to the war dead of the Allied forces of the 1940-45 Pacific War. An altar (with English captions) and a file of the names of the Allied dead are maintained here. The altar contains soil from each of the military cemeteries in the Pacific as well. Just west of the Allied memorial, toward the entry gate, is a modern shrine of one thousand Buddhas with an image of a Buddha holding an infant in his arms. To the south of the Allied memorial is an open, domed structure with an outdoor altar where memorial services may be held.
This solemn and impressive contribution of a private citizen's firm to the memory of the war dead is a fitting representation of the sorrow felt by the Japanese for the errors and disasters brought upon so many by the Japanese military rulers of the 1930s and 1940s.
Adjacent to the Ryozen Kannon and to its north is the Kodaiji, the retreat in which Toyotomi Hideyoshi's widow lived when she became a nun after her husband's death in 1598. It represents, in a sense, the conclusion to the story of the hatred of Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, Hideyoshi's successor, for Hideyoshi and his family.
KODAI-JI: TEMPLE AND NUNNERY
When one leaves the Ryozen Kannon Temple, the entrance to the Kodai-ji nunnery is on the south side of the Kodaiji grounds. This entry is adjacent to the open space which often serves as a parking lot for the Ryozen and Kodai-ji temples. If the nunnery is approached from Kita-mon-mae-dori, beyond the entrance to the Ryozen Kannon temple on that street, a path which turns to the right leads along the south side of the Kodai-ji to its entry gate. The Kodai-ji is a Zen temple of the Rinzai branch of Buddhism (Kennin-ji sect) and is open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Entry fee.
The Kodai-ji is a nunnery which adds another interesting element to the Toyotomi Hideyoshi-Tokugawa Ieyasu relationship as illustrated in the descriptions of the Hokoji and the Hokoku Shrine of the second tour in this guidebook. The Kodaiji was originally founded in 838, but its renaissance as a Buddhist nunnery began after Hideyoshi's death in 1598. In 1605, Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu granted this temple to Hideyoshi's widow, Yodogimi, when she became an ama (nun) to pray for the soul of her husband, and here she lived until shortly before her death which occurred during the siege of Osaka castle in 1615. The temple was designed by two architects under Ieyasu's orders, and by 1604 all of the temple structures had been erected. Sanko Joeki, former abbot of the Kennin-ji, was installed as its founding abbot. To further console Yodogimi, Ieyasu ordered that the Somon gate to Hideyoshi's castle in Fushimi, with its carvings of foxes and dragons by Hidarijingoro, be moved to the Kodai-ji in 1605, and this became the still-extant Omote-mon (Front Gate) to the nunnery. (the gate on the west side of the temple grounds is not open to the public; the front or main gate is on the southern side of the nunnery.) the Keisho-den was also moved from Fushimi to serve as Yodogimi's residence. This building was later turned into the Kohojo (Abbot's Small Quarters), but in 1847 it burned to the ground along with the Daihojo (Abbot's Large Quarters), the Kara-mon (Chinese-style Gateway), and other buildings. The temple is said to have been one of the most attractive temples in the luxurious Momoyama style of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
Yodogimi, who had taken the religious name of Kodai-in, spared no expense in the enhancement of the Kodai-ji. At best, Yodogimi spent tragic years here as a nun. The Hokoji and its Buddha were completed in 1612 in her husband's memory, and its great bell was dedicated in 1614. Ieyasu (as detailed under the entry on the Hokoji) interpreted the inscription on the bell as an offense against him. In November of 1614 Ieyasu led his army against Hideyoshi's son Hideyori at his Osaka castle; a truce was arranged wherein the outer defensive walls were leveled and the moat was filled in. The following year, Ieyasu treacherously returned to the attack when he led 200,000 soldiers in a second battle against the castle (which Hideyori had inherited from his father). Hideyori's 100,000 men were overwhelmed, and the Toyotomi family was annihilated. Hideyori's son of seven was beheaded, his head being posted on a bridge over the Kamogawa river in Kyoto as were those of criminals or traitors. Hideyori's five-year-old daughter was sent to a nunnery in Kamakura for the rest of her life. (Alternative tales claim that Ieyasu permitted the Toyotomi family to escape by boat and that they were befriended loyally by one of the daimyo—a not too likely happenstance.)
Yodogimi died at the siege of Osaka castle, reportedly by having one of her servants kill her so she would not fall into Ieyasu's hands. She died despite pleas made by Ono Harunage, who had rescued Ieyasu's granddaughter (left as a hostage with Yodogimi) from the flames. (Yodogimi is reportedly buried in the Daiyu-ji temple in Osaka.) After the siege of the castle and the death of its defenders, thousands of heads were placed on pikes to line the road from Fushimi to Kyoto as a warning to any prospective opponents of Ieyasu.
The Kodai-ji continued to exist as a Buddhist temple after the death of Yodogimi. Sankojoeki, abbot of the Kennin-ji, had been appointed as founding priest at Yodogimi's nunnery, and the Kodai-ji has remained as one of the largest and most important sub-temples of the Kennin-ji since that time. The temple was damaged by a number of fires in 1789, and then, ironically, in 1863, as tension increased between the incumbent Tokugawa shogunate and those who wished to restore the emperor to power, the temple was damaged once more. The supporters of the imperial cause, suspecting that one of their Tokugawa opponents had taken refuge in the Kodai-ji, attacked the temple and set fire to some of the buildings. Thus today only six of the original seventeenth-century structures in the Kodai-ji still exist: the Omote-mon gateway (the So-mon) to the nunnery, the Kaisan-do (Founder's Hall), the Kangetsudai covered bridge and walkway, the Tamaya (Sanctuary), and the Kasa-tei and the Shigure-tei (two small teahouses). A new Hojo (Abbot's Quarters) was erected in 1913.
The Kodai-ji is entered through the Omote-mon gateway on its southern side, and the path leads one to the left to the ticket booth. From there one proceeds ahead and then to the right behind temple buildings toward the Kangetsudai and the Kaisando.
Kangetsudai The Kangetsudai is a roofed corridor or bridge which leads over the stream between the Garyu Pond (Dragon's Pond) and the Engetsu Pond (Crescent Moon Pond) to the Kaisan-do (Founder's Hall). It has a small, four-pillared structure midway across, and in this center section, when the Kangetsudai was located at Hideyoshi's Fushimi castle, Hideyoshi would sit to gaze at the moon. In the northern section of the ponds is an island in the shape of a turtle, while in the southern portion is a group of stones meant to resemble a crane, these two animals being the traditional symbols of longevity. Work on the pond and garden were begun by the famous landscape designer Kobori Enshu in the 1620s, but the design was not perfected for another sixty-five years.
Kaisan-do A path leads alongside the garden to the front walkway to the Kaisan-do which was dedicated to the memory of Sanko Joeki, the founding priest of the Kodai-ji. To create a memorial hall befitting her temple, Yodogimi commissioned the decorating of the pillars, walls, and ceiling of the Kaisan-do by the leading artists from the Kano and Tosa schools of painting. The ceiling of the inner room boasts not only a dragon by Kano Eitoku (1543-90), but also the ceiling from Yodogimi's carriage. The ceiling of the front room contains a portion of the roof of the war junk created for use by Hideyoshi in his battles against Korea and China. The inner shrine contains an image of Sanko Joeki while the statues on either side of the steps are of Kinoshita Iesada and Unryo-in, Yodogimi's elder brother and younger sister. The four panels of the shrine in tins hall are by the noted fifteenth-century artist Kano Motonobu.
Tamaya The Kangetsudai, the roofed corridor with its moon-viewing pavilion, leads to the Kaisan-do from the west and is continued on the eastern side from the Kaisan-do to the Tamaya. The corridor is named the Garyoro (Reclining Dragon Corridor) from the resemblance of its sloping roof to the back of a reclining dragon, the roof tiles having been laid in a manner that resembles the scales on the back of a dragon. (Only a short length at its far end may be entered.)
If the Kaisan-do would appear to be overly decorated, it cannot match the Momoyama-period splendor of the Tamaya. A path