Dairyū-ji Temple

Overview

Dairyū-ji (大龍寺) is a Buddhist temple of the Rinzai school in Gifu, the capital city of Gifu Prefecture in central Japan. The Rinzai school is one of the major branches of Zen Buddhism, and its temples are known for austere practice and for the formal gardens and calligraphy associated with Zen aesthetics.

The temple belongs to a pilgrimage circuit called the Mino Thirty-three Kannon (美濃三十三観音, Mino sanjūsan Kannon). Such circuits link thirty-three temples dedicated to Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion; thirty-three is the traditional number of forms the bodhisattva takes. Dairyū-ji is one of the stops on the Mino circuit, which covers the old Mino Province — the area that corresponds roughly to modern Gifu Prefecture.

Because the temple sits near the Takatomi-chō district of Yamagata, it is also known as Takatomi Dairyū-ji (高富大龍寺). Its annual festival, at which daruma dolls are burned, has earned it a second nickname: Daruma Kannon (だるま観音). A daruma doll is a round, weighted figure modelled on the monk Bodhidharma, founder of the Zen lineage; the dolls are bought with the eyes blank, one eye painted when a goal is set, and the other when it is achieved. Burning them at the end of the year returns them to the temple that blessed them.

History

The temple's founding is dated to around 700, in the closing decades of the Asuka period (538–710). The Asuka period takes its name from the Asuka region of what is now Nara Prefecture, where the imperial court was based for much of the era. It was a formative age for Japanese Buddhism: the religion had arrived from the Korean kingdom of Baekje in the sixth century, and by 700 it was being organised under state patronage, with temples, monks and sutra-copying projects supported by the court.

A foundation date of about 700 places Dairyū-ji among the earliest stratum of Buddhist sites in the Mino region. The temple later came under the patronage of the Toki clan (土岐氏), a warrior family that dominated Mino Province during the medieval period. The Toki produced a line of shugo — provincial military governors — and their sponsorship tied the temple to the political fortunes of the province.

Dairyū-ji is also associated with Inaba Ittetsu (稲葉一鉄), a Sengoku-period warlord of Mino. The Sengoku period, the "Warring States" era of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, saw provincial lords fight for control of the country; Inaba was one of the Mino commanders whose decisions shaped which side the province took in those contests. His connection to the temple places Dairyū-ji within the network of family temples and patronage that Sengoku lords maintained.

What Stands There Today

Dairyū-ji stands in the city of Gifu, at coordinates 35.49° north, 136.79° east — in the low ground of the Nōbi Plain, the flat alluvial plain that stretches across this part of central Japan. The neighbourhood is associated with Takatomi-chō, the district that gives the temple its alternative name.

The temple's living tradition is its daruma festival. Daruma dolls are brought to the temple through the year and consigned to the flames in a ceremony that closes the cycle that began when each doll was bought. The nickname Daruma Kannon reflects how strongly the festival has come to define the temple in local usage.

As one of the Mino Thirty-three Kannon, Dairyū-ji also receives pilgrims following the circuit. Pilgrimages of this kind — thirty-three temples, each with a Kannon image — were a common form of popular religious travel in the Edo period, and several such circuits survive across Japan.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's name is written 大龍寺. Its reading in kana is だいりゅうじ, and in romaji it is Dairyū-ji.

The name breaks down into three characters:

• 大 — read here as だい (dai). Meaning: "great" or "large". This is one of the most common elements in Japanese temple names, and it appears in the names of many major temples across the country.
• 龍 — read here as りゅう (ryū). Meaning: "dragon". The character depicts a dragon in traditional form; it is a favourite element in temple names and is also common in personal names. Note the long vowel: ryū is held for two beats, which is why the romaji carries a macron.
• 寺 — read here as じ (ji). Meaning: "temple". This is the standard suffix for Buddhist temple names in Japan, and recognising it lets a reader identify a temple name at a glance.

The compound therefore means, roughly, "Great Dragon Temple". The reading of 寺 shifts depending on the name — it appears as ji in Dairyū-ji, as dera in names such as Kiyomizu-dera, and as tera in others — so the kana reading is worth learning alongside the characters.

The alternative name, 高富大龍寺 (たかとみだいりゅうじ, Takatomi Dairyū-ji), prefixes the place name Takatomi (高富) to the temple name. The nickname だるま観音 (Daruma Kannon) combines daruma, the doll, with 観音 (Kannon), the bodhisattva of compassion.

Visiting and Context

Dairyū-ji is in Gifu city, in Gifu Prefecture, and is reached from the Takatomi-chō area. The temple is a stop on the Mino Thirty-three Kannon pilgrimage, so it can be visited as part of a circuit or on its own.

For a student of Japanese, the temple's names are a compact lesson in how temple names are built. The suffix 寺 recurs across the country; the element 龍 appears in names from the great Zen foundations of Kamakura to small local halls; and the place-name prefix in 高富大龍寺 shows how a temple can carry both a religious name and a geographic one. The festival nickname, だるま観音, shows the same pattern in reverse — a popular practice, the burning of daruma dolls, reshaping what a temple is called in everyday speech.

The temple's history also traces the arc of Japanese Buddhism in miniature: a foundation around 700, in the era when Buddhism was being organised under court patronage; medieval patronage by the Toki clan; and a place in the Sengoku politics of Mino through Inaba Ittetsu. A visitor standing on the temple grounds is standing at a site that has been continuously part of the religious landscape of the region since the Asuka period.