Kongōrin-ji Temple

Overview

Kongōrin-ji (金剛輪寺) is a Buddhist temple in Aishō-chō, a town in Shiga Prefecture, east of Lake Biwa. It belongs to the Tendai sect, and its central object of worship — the honzon (本尊, ほんぞん, the principal image enshrined in a temple's main hall) — is Kannon Bosatsu, the bodhisattva of compassion.

The temple is one of a trio known as Kotō Sanzan (湖東三山, ことうさんざん, "three mountains east of the lake"), together with Saimyō-ji in Kōra and Hyakusai-ji in Higashiōmi. It also appears on the Lake Biwa 108 Pilgrimage Sites circuit, the Shinbutsu Reijō Junpai no Michi, and the 近江西国三十三箇所 (Kosei Saigoku Sanjūsankasho), a thirty-three-temple Kannon pilgrimage route through the western provinces.

History

Kongōrin-ji was founded in 741, the thirteenth year of the Tenpyō era (天平, てんぴょう), during the Nara period. That places its foundation within the same decades in which the imperial court was sponsoring the great provincial temple network and the colossal Buddha at Tōdai-ji in Nara.

The temple is also known as Matsuo-dera (松尾寺), a name taken from its location. Over the centuries it became associated with the Tendai school, the tradition that grew out of the monasteries on Mount Hiei above Kyoto and came to dominate much of the religious landscape of the Lake Biwa region.

What Stands There Today

The complex includes a Main Hall, the Kongōrin-ji Main Hall, which is designated a National Treasure. Inside it are numerous statues dating from the Heian period onward, which are classed as Important Cultural Properties. The temple grounds also contain a garden designated a National Place of Scenic Beauty.

The Main Hall's status as a National Treasure links it to the wider Kotō Sanzan group, the three-temple circuit of which Kongōrin-ji is a part.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's name is written 金剛輪寺. It is read in kana as こんごうりんじ, and in romaji as Kongōrinji (often written Kongōrin-ji to show the word boundary). The name breaks down into four kanji:

• 金 — read here as kon. Meaning: gold, metal. It is the first element of kongo.
• 剛 — read here as gō. Meaning: strong, firm, hard. Together, 金剛 (kongo) renders the Sanskrit vajra, the indestructible thunderbolt or diamond — a central image in Buddhist thought for something unbreakable and adamantine.
• 輪 — read here as rin. Meaning: wheel, ring, circle. A rin is also a disc or halo, and in Buddhist vocabulary the wheel is a standard metaphor for the turning of the dharma.
• 寺 — read here as ji. Meaning: temple. This is the ordinary suffix for a Buddhist temple, and it appears in the names of thousands of temples across Japan.

So the name as a whole carries the sense of a "diamond-wheel temple," built on the kongo image of indestructibility. The alternative name, Matsuo-dera (松尾寺), is written with 松 (matsu, pine), 尾 (o, tail or ridge), and the same 寺 (dera, temple) — a name tied to the place rather than to doctrine.

Readers will meet 寺 constantly in Japanese place names and addresses, and it is worth fixing its two common readings early: ji in compounds such as Kongōrinji, and dera when it stands as the final element of a name like Matsuo-dera. The 金剛 element is likewise productive: it appears in the names of other temples, in the word 金剛石 (kongōseki, diamond), and in the name of the Kongō range south of Nara.

Visiting and Context

Kongōrin-ji sits at coordinates 35.1612500, 136.2830556, in Aishō-chō, Shiga Prefecture. The town lies on the eastern side of Lake Biwa, within reach of the larger centres of Hikone and Ōmihachiman.

The temple's inclusion in the Kotō Sanzan makes it part of a natural day's itinerary alongside Saimyō-ji and Hyakusai-ji, the two other "mountains east of the lake." Its placement on the Lake Biwa 108 Pilgrimage Sites and on the 近江西国三十三箇所 ties it into the older Kannon pilgrimage tradition of the region, in which thirty-three temples are dedicated to the bodhisattva of compassion — the same figure enshrined here as the honzon.

For a visitor with an interest in the Japanese language, the temple rewards attention to names. The Main Hall, the Heian-period statues within it, and the garden each carry designations — National Treasure, Important Cultural Property, National Place of Scenic Beauty — whose Japanese terms (国宝, kokuhō; 重要文化財, jūyō bunkazai; 名勝, meishō) recur at heritage sites throughout the country and are worth learning as vocabulary.