Kyoto. John H. Martin
on Kodai-ji Minami Monzen-dori. It is open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. except on Mondays and the New Year holiday. Entry fee. The Ryozen Rekishi-kan is a museum depicting the history of the period on either side of 1868, the year in which the rule of Tokugawa Shoguns passed into history and the modernization of Japan under the name of the Meiji Emperor began. The displays consist of photographs, writings, armaments and other artifacts that relate the events of this epic period of change in Japanese political and cultural life. Special exhibitions on the Meiji era are also presented. In a sense, the museum replaces the memorial to the heroes of the Restoration, noted above, as time often effaces the public memory of men and events. As a specialized museum whose labels are in Japanese, few foreign visitors will patronize it, but it is mentioned here for those interested in the period of drastic change in Japan after the 1860s.
3 GOKOKU SHRINE
The Gokoku Jinja, also known as the Kyoto Shrine, is to the east of the Yasaka Pagoda at the top of Kodai-ji Minami Monzen-dori, which is one street to the north of the street in front of the entrance to the Yasaka Pagoda. Take Kodai-ji Minami Monzen-dori up the hill. At the top of the road, on the left as the road turns to the south, is the Gokoku Shrine. The shrine is open during daylight hours without charge. The is an old shrine meant to serve as the protector of the city and it differs little in appearance from other Shinto shrines. The buildings are behind a vermilion fence on the left as one mounts the hillside street to the shrine entrance. Within the grounds, beyond the entry torii, is the un-painted Heiden (Offertory), and beyond that is the Haiden (Oratory) and then the fenced Honden (Spirit Hall). As such, for the casual visitor it is of historical interest only. A century ago, when Shinto was being turned into the militaristic faith that served the military and the State, it held greater significance for the Japanese public than it now does. To the south of the Gokoku Shrine, a monument of major importance was raised in the late 19th century, a site now almost forgotten. This monument was dedicated to the heroes of the movement in the decade prior to 1868 who opposed the Tokugawa Shoguns and who helped to bring about the Meiji Restoration and the modernization of Japan. Here are buried a number of the heroes of that era, including Kido Koin, one of the leaders of Meiji times.
4 RYOZEN KANNON TEMPLE
The Gokoku Shrine and the Ryozen Rekishi-kan (Historical Museum) represent the heady days of the 1870s when the new Meiji government came into power and Japanese nationalism began the flowering which would ultimately lead to disaster for much of the world in the mid-1900s and then to the defeat of Japan in 1945. The Ryozen Kannon Temple, just a short distance away, marks the regret most Japanese feel for the extremes to which nationalism took the nation in the decade and a half after 1930. The route to the Ryozen Kannon Temple heads back down Koda-ji Minami Monzen-dori to Kita-mon-mae, the first narrow street to the right. A turn on to this street brings the towering image of the concrete Ryozen Kannon figure into sight and then the entrance to the temple grounds. The temple is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Entry fee.
In 1955, a 79 foot (23.7 m) tall seated Kannon image in concrete was built by a transportation firm to honor the war dead of the Pacific War (World War II in the Pacific and Asia). It honors not only the Japanese who died in combat but the dead of the Allied forces who opposed Japan. When you pay the entry fee, you receive a lighted incense stick; this is to be placed in the large incense pot before the shrine where prayers may be said for the peaceful repose of the dead. A modest Nio-mon gate leads into the Ryozen Kannon grounds. Beyond the entryway, a reflecting pool is situated before a large roofed incense pot where you may place the lit incense stick and pray. Behind the incense pot is the Hondo, the main shrine building, topped by the huge Kannon image. On the ground floor is an altar, under the base of the gigantic 11-headed Kannon, the god of mercy, the main image of the memorial temple. In the northwest section of this level is an image of the recumbent Buddha as he appeared when he passed from this life upon achieving Nirvana. A 5 foot (1.5 m) tall Buddha on a lotus is in the southwest area. A staircase behind this portion of the building leads into the lower part of the huge Kannon image where the altars have the figures of the zodiac year.
This large statue of Kannon honors the fallen Japanese and Allied soldiers of the Pacific War.
Behind this main structure is a Memorial Hall to the Japanese war dead with a file of 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 8 foot (2.4 meter) long memorial footprint of the Buddha, and west of that is a gold sphere under a roof. Beyond, to the north, is a garden. To the south of the main Kannon structure is a second Memorial Hall to the war dead of the Allied forces of the 1940–5 Pacific War. An altar (with English captions) and a file of the names of the Allied dead is maintained here. The altar contains soil from each of the military cemeteries in the Pacific. Just west of the Allied memorial, toward the entry gate, is a modern shrine of 1,000 Buddhas with an image of a Buddha with an infant in his arms. To the south of the Allied memorial is an open domed structure with an outdoor altar with benches where memorial services are held. This solemn and impressive contribution of a private citizen 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.
5 KODAI-JI NUNNERY
Adjacent to the Ryozen Kannon Temple and to its north is the Kodai-ji Nunnery, the retreat of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s widow 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. When one leaves the Ryozen Kannon Temple, the entrance to the Kodai-ji Nunnery is on the south side of the Kodai-ji grounds. 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 Kodai-ji to its entry gate. Kodaiji is a Zen temple of the Rinzai branch of Buddhism and is open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Entry fee.
The fact that Kodai-ji is a nunnery adds another interesting element to the Hideyoshi– Ieyasu relationship as described in Tour 2 above. Kodai-ji 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, Kitano Mandokoro, when she became an ama (nun) to pray for the soul of her husband, and here she lived until shortly before her death. Ieyasu was more than generous in helping to create a magnificent nunnery for the widow, a political ploy to indicate his regard for the Toyotomi family—although his ultimate intent actually was to obliterate the family of Hideyoshi. The rebuilt temple was designed by two architects under Ieyasu’s orders, and by 1604 all the temple structures had been erected. Sanko Joeki, the former abbot of Kennin-ji, was installed as its founding abbot. To further console Kitano Mandokoro, Ieyasu ordered that the So-mon Gate to Hideyoshi’s castle in Fushimi, with its carvings of foxes and dragons by Hidari Jingoro, be moved to Kodai-ji in 1605, and this became the still extant Omotemon (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 Kitano Mandokoro’s residence. This building was later turned into the Ko Hojo (the Abbot’s small quarters), but in 1847 it burned to the ground along with the Dai Hojo (the Abbot’s large quarters), the Kara-mon (Chinese gate) and other buildings. The temple is said to have been one of the most attractive temples in the luxurious Momoyama style in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
Kitano Mandokoro, who had taken the religious name of Kodai-in, spared no expense in the enhancement of the Kodai-ji, but at best she had tragic years here as a nun. The Hoko-ji Temple 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 Hoko-ji) interpreted the inscription on the bell as an offense against him, and in time he would destroy all the memorials to Hideyoshi. Then, in November of 1614, Ieyasu led his army against Hideyori (the son by Hideyoshi’s favorite consort, Yodogimi) at Hideyori’s Osaka Castle. A truce was arranged whereby 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 the second battle against