Honmyō-ji Temple

Overview

Honmyō-ji (本妙寺) is a Buddhist temple in Hanazono, in the Nishi-ku ward of Kumamoto, on the island of Kyushu in southern Japan. It belongs to the Nichiren sect (日蓮宗, Nichiren-shū), the school of Buddhism founded by the thirteenth-century monk Nichiren, and specifically to a branch of that sect called Rokujōmon-ryū (六条門流). Within Kyushu it holds the highest rank of any temple in that branch.

The temple was founded in 1585, in the thirteenth year of the Tenshō era (天正, Tenshō), during the Azuchi–Momoyama period (1573–1603) — the decades of unification wars that ended Japan's long medieval civil strife. It is closely bound up with Katō Kiyomasa (加藤清正, 1562–1611), the daimyō who built Kumamoto Castle and who was a devoted follower of Nichiren Buddhism. His grave is at Honmyō-ji.

History

Honmyō-ji was established in 1585, the thirteenth year of Tenshō. The date places it in the Azuchi–Momoyama period, an era named for the two strongholds of the men who reunified Japan: Azuchi Castle, built by Oda Nobunaga, and Momoyama Castle, built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. In 1585 Hideyoshi was completing his conquest of the western provinces, and Kumamoto sat in the territory of the powerful Shimazu and then Katō houses.

The figure who shaped the temple's fortunes was Katō Kiyomasa (1562–1611). Kiyomasa was a daimyō — a regional military lord — and is remembered as the builder of Kumamoto Castle, the fortress whose massive stone walls still dominate the city centre. He was also a committed adherent of Nichiren Buddhism, and Honmyō-ji became the temple of his devotion.

Kiyomasa died in 1611, and his grave lies at Honmyō-ji. The temple's standing as the senior Nichiren temple of the Rokujōmon-ryū in Kyushu rests on that connection.

The temple also carries a darker association in modern memory: it is recorded as the site of the Forced Hospitalization at Honmyōji, an event in which people were detained and confined on the temple grounds. The temple's long history therefore runs from the unification wars of the 1580s through to the social and public-health conflicts of the modern era.

What Stands There Today

Honmyō-ji occupies a hillside site in Hanazono, in Nishi-ku, the western ward of Kumamoto city, at coordinates roughly 32.82° north, 130.69° east. The approach to the temple is a long flight of stone steps climbing the slope, a form of approach — called sandō (参道, the path to a shrine or temple) — that is common to Japanese religious sites and here gives the temple its commanding position over the surrounding city.

The principal monument is the grave of Katō Kiyomasa. Because Kiyomasa was both a major political figure and the temple's patron, his tomb makes Honmyō-ji a site of interest to visitors tracing the history of Kumamoto and of the unification period, not only to followers of Nichiren Buddhism.

As the highest-ranking temple of its branch in Kyushu, Honmyō-ji functions as a regional centre for the Rokujōmon-ryū, with the routine life of a working Nichiren temple: daily services, memorial rites for the dead, and observance of the sect's calendar.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's name is written 本妙寺. It is read ほんみょうじ in kana, and rendered in romaji as Honmyō-ji. The final じ is voiced — it is -ji, not -shi — which is the usual reading of the character 寺 when it follows another word as part of a temple's name.

Broken down character by character:

• 本 — read hon here. Its basic meaning is "book", but its older and more fundamental sense is "origin", "root", "source", or "the main thing". In temple names it very often carries this sense of "true", "original", or "fundamental", and it appears in the names of many Buddhist temples and sects.
• 妙 — read myō here. It means "wonderful", "marvellous", "exquisite", or "mysterious". In Buddhist vocabulary it is a weighty word: it translates the Sanskrit sat, "excellent" or "wondrous", and it appears in central texts of the Nichiren and Tendai traditions, where it carries the sense of the profound and inconceivable truth of things.
• 寺 — read ji here. It means "temple". This is the standard character for a Buddhist temple in Japan, and it is what distinguishes a temple name from a shrine name, which would normally end in 神社 (jinja) or 大社 (taisha).

So the name as a whole can be glossed as something like "Temple of the Original Wonder" — 本 (hon, "original" or "true") plus 妙 (myō, "wondrous") plus 寺 (ji, "temple"). The compound 本妙 is not unique to this temple; it is a phrase with roots in Buddhist scripture, and it recurs in the names of temples in the Nichiren and Tendai lineages.

For learners, two practical points are worth holding on to. First, the reading of 寺 shifts with context: it is tera when it stands alone as a common noun, and ji when it is attached to a temple's name, as here. Second, the long vowel in myō is real and should be held — ほんみょうじ has four morae, ho-n-myo-o-ji compressed into Honmyō-ji, not a clipped "Honmyoji".

Visiting and Context

Honmyō-ji sits in Nishi-ku, the western ward of Kumamoto, in the Hanazono district. Kumamoto city lies on the west coast of Kyushu, and the temple's hillside position gives it a view over the urban area below. The site is reached by a long stone stairway, so a visit involves a climb.

The temple's importance for a visitor is twofold. It is a functioning Nichiren temple and the senior temple of its branch in Kyushu, and it is the burial place of Katō Kiyomasa (1562–1611), the daimyō who built Kumamoto Castle. Anyone following the history of Kumamoto — the castle, the unification wars of the late sixteenth century, and the career of Kiyomasa — will find the temple's grave the natural counterpart to the castle itself.

For students of Japanese, the name repays attention. 本妙寺 introduces three characters that appear constantly in Japanese religious and place names: 本 in its "original, true" sense, 妙 in its Buddhist sense of the wondrous, and 寺 as the standard marker of a temple. Recognising 寺 as -ji in names, and knowing that it is read tera on its own, is one of the small decoding skills that makes Japanese place names legible rather than opaque.