Kiyomizu-dera Temple

Overview

Kiyomizu-dera (清水寺, きよみずでら) is a Buddhist temple in the city of Isumi, on the Bōsō Peninsula of Chiba Prefecture, Japan. It belongs to the Tendai school of Buddhism, one of the major Japanese Buddhist traditions, and its honzon (本尊, ほんぞん) — the principal image enshrined in the main hall — is a statue of Senjū Kannon Bosatsu (千手観音菩薩, せんじゅかんのんぼさつ), the thousand-armed bodhisattva of compassion. The temple's full formal name is Otowa-yama Senjū-in Seisui-ji (音羽山 千手院 清水寺). It is the 32nd stop on the Bandō Sanjūsankasho (坂東三十三箇所, ばんどうさんじゅうさんかしょ), a thirty-three-temple pilgrimage circuit across the Kantō region.

History

Kiyomizu-dera was founded in 807, during the Heian period (794–1185). In the Japanese era system, that year fell within Daidō 2 (大同二年), the second year of the Daidō era. The Heian period was the age when Buddhism, having arrived from the continent centuries earlier, was being organised into the great schools that still define Japanese religious life, and when temple-building spread from the capital region outward into the provinces. A foundation date in the early ninth century places Kiyomizu-dera among the older temples of the Bōsō Peninsula.

The temple's affiliation with the Tendai school connects it to the tradition founded in Japan by Saichō (最澄, さいちょう) on Mount Hiei, near Kyoto, in the same era. Tendai became one of the dominant Buddhist institutions of the Heian period, and its network of temples extended well beyond the capital.

Kiyomizu-dera's role in the Bandō Sanjūsankasho gives it a second, later layer of history. The Bandō circuit is a pilgrimage route of thirty-three temples, the number matching the thirty-three forms of Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion. Kiyomizu-dera is the thirty-second of the thirty-three stops, near the end of the route. Pilgrims travelling the circuit arrive at the temple as one of their final destinations.

What Stands There Today

The temple stands in Isumi, a city on the eastern side of Chiba Prefecture, at coordinates roughly 35.29° north, 140.36° east. It remains an active Tendai temple, with a Senjū Kannon as its central object of worship. The temple is also known by the informal name "Kiyomizu Kannon."

Its position as the thirty-second stop on the Bandō Sanjūsankasho means it continues to receive pilgrims walking the circuit, as well as local worshippers. The pilgrimage route as a whole links temples across the Kantō region, and each stop carries its own number and its own Kannon image; at Kiyomizu-dera that image is the thousand-armed form.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's name in Japanese is:

清水寺

• Kana reading: きよみずでら
• Romaji: Kiyomizu-dera

Broken down character by character:

清 — read here as kiyo. The character means "pure," "clear," or "clean." It is the same character used in the word 清い (きよい, kiyoi), meaning "pure" or "clean."

水 — read here as mizu. The character means "water." On its own it is the everyday Japanese word for water, 水 (みず, mizu).

Together, 清水 (kiyomizu) means "pure water" or "clear spring water." The two characters form a single compound word, and the reading kiyomizu is a native Japanese reading rather than a Chinese-derived one — the kind of reading known as kun'yomi (訓読み, くんよみ).

寺 — read here as dera. The character means "temple," specifically a Buddhist temple. When it appears alone or at the end of a temple name, it is usually read tera; in this name it takes the voiced form dera, a common sound change in compounds.

So the whole name, 清水寺, literally means "Pure Water Temple." The name is shared with the far more famous Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto, and the two temples are distinct institutions in different regions. The full formal name, Otowa-yama Senjū-in Seisui-ji, adds further elements: 音羽山 (Otowa-yama) is the temple's mountain name, a conventional prefix in Japanese temple names; 千手院 (Senjū-in) refers to the thousand-armed Kannon; and 清水寺 appears again in its Sino-Japanese reading Seisui-ji.

Visiting and Context

Isumi sits on the Pacific coast of the Bōsō Peninsula, in the southeastern part of Chiba Prefecture. The temple's location there places it within the Bandō Sanjūsankasho, a circuit that traditionally begins in Sagami Province — modern Kanagawa Prefecture — and works eastward and northward through the Kantō plain. As stop thirty-two, Kiyomizu-dera belongs to the closing stretch of the route.

For readers of Japanese, the temple's name is a useful study case. It shows a compound built from two native-reading elements, 清 and 水, followed by the very common temple suffix 寺 in its voiced form dera. The same suffix appears in hundreds of Japanese temple names, usually as tera or dera, and recognising it makes temple names legible at a glance. The mountain name and the Kannon reference in the full title show two other recurring patterns: the 山 (san or yama) prefix that many temples carry, and the naming of a temple after its principal image.