Chishaku-in Temple

Overview

Chishaku-in (智積院) is a Buddhist temple in Higashiyama-ku, the eastern ward of Kyoto. It belongs to the Chisan-ha (智山派) branch of Shingon-shū (真言宗), the Shingon school of esoteric Buddhism, and was established in 1601, in year six of the Keichō era (慶長), during the Azuchi–Momoyama period. The temple is counted among the Thirteen Buddhist Sites of Kyoto, a pilgrimage circuit of thirteen temples in the city, and it also holds a place in the Shingon sect's eighteen Motoyama, the eighteen head temples of the school. Two further pilgrimage routes list it: the Kinki Thirty-six Fudoson Sacred Ground, dedicated to Fudō Myōō (不動明王), the immovable wisdom king, and the Shinbutsu Reijō Junpai no Michi, a route linking sites associated with the blending of Shinto and Buddhist practice.

History

Chishaku-in was founded in 1601, at the very end of the Azuchi–Momoyama period, the decades of unification wars that preceded the Tokugawa peace. The temple's grounds in Higashiyama lie close to the centre of Kyoto's eastern temple district, an area dense with religious foundations of several schools.

The temple is known for a historic garden, traditionally described as a favourite of Sen no Rikyū (千利休), the sixteenth-century tea master who shaped the Japanese way of tea. The garden is a designed landscape in the Japanese tradition, meant to be viewed from the temple's interior rather than walked through.

In the twentieth century the temple commissioned the Nihonga (日本画) painter Inshō Dōmoto (堂本印象) to paint new sliding doors facing the famous garden. Nihonga is a modern school of Japanese painting that uses traditional materials — mineral pigments, ink, and gold leaf — often on a Western-influenced pictorial structure. Dōmoto's "Ladies at Tea," completed in 1958, shows two women enjoying tea: on the left a woman in kimono, on the right a woman in Western dress. The four sliding doors were a departure from the traditional style expected in a temple setting.

What Stands There Today

The temple stands in Higashiyama-ku at roughly 34.99 degrees north, 135.78 degrees east, in the eastern hills of Kyoto. Its historic garden remains the centrepiece of a visit, laid out to be seen from the veranda and rooms of the temple buildings.

The sliding doors painted by Inshō Dōmoto in 1958 face that garden. The four panels of "Ladies at Tea," with their pairing of a kimono-clad figure and a woman in Western dress, are a twentieth-century layer on a site whose architecture and planting reach back to the early seventeenth century. The temple's membership in the Thirteen Buddhist Sites of Kyoto, the Shingon eighteen Motoyama, the Kinki Thirty-six Fudoson Sacred Ground, and the Shinbutsu Reijō Junpai no Michi means it functions both as an active religious foundation and as a stop on several established pilgrimage routes.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's name is written 智積院. Its reading in kana is ちしゃくいん, and in romaji it is Chishaku-in.

The name breaks into three characters:

• 智 — read here as chi. It means wisdom, intellect, or discernment. This is the same character used in the name of Chishaku, the figure from whom the temple's lineage takes its name.
• 積 — read here as shaku. It means to accumulate, pile up, or store. Combined with 智, the pair 智積 suggests accumulated wisdom — wisdom gathered over time rather than held in a single moment.
• 院 — read here as in. It means temple, hall, or cloister. In Japanese temple names, 院 typically marks a foundation of substantial rank, and it appears in the names of many major temples.

The reading ちしゃくいん follows the pattern common to temple names: the two kanji of the distinctive part are read with their Sino-Japanese on readings, and the final 院 is voiced as in. The hyphen in Chishaku-in separates the temple's name from the suffix 院, the same way it does in names such as Byōdō-in or Sanjūsangen-dō's neighbours in Higashiyama.

Visiting and Context

Chishaku-in sits in Higashiyama-ku, the ward that runs along the eastern edge of Kyoto beneath the hills. The area is one of the most concentrated temple districts in Japan, and Chishaku-in is within walking distance of several other major sites, which makes it easy to fold into a day of temple visiting rather than treating as a separate trip.

The temple's garden is the principal reason many visitors come. It is a historic garden attributed in tradition to the taste of Sen no Rikyū, and it is designed to be viewed from inside the buildings — the standard mode for many Kyoto gardens of this type, where the composition is framed by the architecture rather than experienced on foot.

The Dōmoto sliding doors add a modern counterpoint. Painted in 1958, "Ladies at Tea" places a woman in kimono beside a woman in Western dress, a pairing that registers the social changes of postwar Japan while remaining inside the Nihonga tradition of mineral pigments and gold ground. The four doors face the garden, so the paintings and the landscape are seen together.

Because Chishaku-in belongs to the Thirteen Buddhist Sites of Kyoto and to the Shingon eighteen Motoyama, it also draws pilgrims following those circuits, as well as those walking the Kinki Thirty-six Fudoson Sacred Ground and the Shinbutsu Reijō Junpai no Michi. For a visitor with an interest in the Japanese language, the temple offers a compact lesson in how temple names are built: a lineage name in two kanji, closed by the suffix 院, read together as ちしゃくいん.