Jindai-ji Temple

Overview

Jindai-ji (深大寺, じんだいじ) is a Buddhist temple of the Tendai school, located in Chōfu, in the western part of Tokyo Prefecture. Tendai (天台, てんだい) is one of the major schools of Japanese Buddhism, introduced from China in the early ninth century and centred on Mount Hiei near Kyoto. Jindai-ji was founded in 733, during the Nara period (710–794), which makes it considerably older than most of the temples a visitor encounters in the Tokyo area. Its founding year falls in Tenpyō 天平 5, the fifth year of the Tenpyō era.

The temple sits at coordinates 35.6675250, 139.5504720, in the neighbourhood of Jindaiji Motomachi. It is the owner of a Hakuhō Buddha, a term used for Buddhist sculpture produced in the Hakuhō period, the late seventh-century era of Japanese Buddhist art that takes its name from the reign of Emperor Tenmu. The temple gives its name to Jindai-ji Castle, a nearby fortification that was named after the temple rather than the other way round.

History

Jindai-ji was established in 733, in the Nara period, the era when Buddhism was consolidating its position as a state-supported religion in Japan. The capital at the time was Heijō-kyō, present-day Nara, and temple-building across the provinces was an established practice. The temple's founding is tied to a figure named Jinjadaisyō, from whom the temple takes its name.

The temple has been damaged by fire. A conflagration is recorded among the significant events in its history, one of the recurring hazards for Japanese temples, which were built largely of timber and housed flammable images, sutras and ritual objects.

Jindai-ji is also associated with the Jindai-ji Hōzuki Festival, a celebration tied to the hōzuki plant, known in English as the Chinese lantern or groundcherry. The festival is one of the temple's defining public events and reflects a long-standing local association between the temple grounds and the cultivation and sale of hōzuki.

The temple's name was later borrowed for Jindai-ji Castle, a fortification in the same area. That the castle took its name from the temple, rather than the reverse, indicates the temple's prominence in the locality well before the castle was built.

What Stands There Today

Jindai-ji stands in Chōfu, a city in western Tokyo Prefecture, in the district of Jindaiji Motomachi. The temple is a Tendai establishment, meaning its liturgy, clerical lineage and institutional affiliation follow the Tendai school rather than, say, Shingon, Jōdo or Zen.

Among the objects held by the temple is a Hakuhō Buddha. The Hakuhō period covers the latter half of the seventh century, and sculpture from that era is among the earliest distinctively Japanese Buddhist art. A temple founded in 733 holding a Hakuhō-period image means the image predates the temple's own foundation, a common situation in Japanese temples, where older devotional objects were sometimes enshrined in newer foundations.

The temple's grounds host the Jindai-ji Hōzuki Festival, which draws visitors to the site. The area around the temple is known for hōzuki, and the festival is built around that association.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's name is written 深大寺. Its reading in kana is じんだいじ, and in romaji it is Jindai-ji. Note that the written form and the spoken form do not match character for character: this is one of the standard traps in Japanese place and temple names, and it is worth understanding exactly how the mismatch works.

The three characters break down as follows.

深 — in this name, read じん (jin). The character's ordinary meaning is "deep", and its more usual readings are ふかい (fukai) as an adjective and しん (shin) in Sino-Japanese compounds. The reading じん here is specific to this name.

大 — in this name, read だい (dai). The character means "great" or "large". Its common readings are おおきい (ōkii) as an adjective, and だい (dai) or たい (tai) in compounds. The reading used here, だい, is the ordinary one.

寺 — in this name, read じ (ji). The character means "temple" and is the standard suffix for Buddhist temple names across Japan. It appears in such well-known names as 浅草寺 (Sensō-ji) and 東大寺 (Tōdai-ji). When it follows another element, it is normally voiced to じ rather than てら (tera), which is the character's native Japanese reading.

Put together, the characters 深大寺 would, by their most familiar readings, suggest something like Shin-dai-ji or Fuka-dai-ji. The actual reading is Jindai-ji. The first character takes the irregular reading じん, and the second and third take their regular compound readings だい and じ.

The name is connected to the figure Jinjadaisyō, after whom the temple is named. That connection explains the otherwise irregular じん reading of the first character: the temple's name preserves the sound of a personal name rather than the ordinary reading of the character 深.

For learners, the practical lesson is that temple names in Japanese must be learned with their readings attached. The characters tell you the meaning, but only the reading tells you what to say.

Visiting and Context

Jindai-ji is located in Chōfu, in the western reaches of Tokyo Prefecture, at coordinates 35.6675250, 139.5504720. Its neighbourhood is Jindaiji Motomachi. The temple belongs to the Tendai school and traces its foundation to 733, in the Nara period, specifically Tenpyō 5.

The site's identity is bound up with two things beyond its religious function: the Jindai-ji Hōzuki Festival, and the hōzuki plant that gives the festival its name. The temple also gives its name to Jindai-ji Castle nearby, a reminder that in Japan, temples and fortifications often shared a landscape and a name, with the religious foundation frequently the older of the two.

For students of Japanese, Jindai-ji is a useful case study in how temple names work: a three-character name, a reading that does not follow straightforwardly from those characters, and a historical person, Jinjadaisyō, whose name is fossilised inside the temple's own.