Kuhonbutsu Jōshin-ji Temple

Overview

Kuhonbutsu Jōshin-ji (九品仏浄真寺) is a Buddhist temple of the Jōdo sect in Okusawa, in the Setagaya ward of Tokyo. It was founded in 1678, the sixth year of the Enpō era (延宝, えんぽう), during the Edo period. The temple is dedicated to Amida Buddha, and its popular name comes from the nine statues of Amida enshrined on its grounds, each showing the Buddha in a different manifestation. That name, Kuhonbutsu — "nine grades of the Buddha" — has attached itself to the surrounding district and to the railway station that serves it.

History

Jōshin-ji was established in 1678, in the sixth year of Enpō, a period falling under the rule of the fourth Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Ietsuna. The temple belongs to the Jōdo sect (浄土宗, じょうどしゅう), the "Pure Land" school of Buddhism, which centres on faith in Amida Buddha and the hope of rebirth in his western paradise. The sect had been established in Japan in the late twelfth century by Hōnen and grew, through the Edo period, into one of the country's largest Buddhist denominations, with a dense network of temples supported by the Tokugawa order.

The temple's identity was fixed by its nine statues of Amida, which give it both its popular name and its place in the devotional landscape of Edo. The nine images correspond to the nine grades of rebirth in the Pure Land, a scheme set out in the sutras of the tradition. Setagaya, then a stretch of farmland and low hills on the western edge of Edo, was the setting for a temple of this kind: close enough to the city to draw pilgrims, far enough to hold a large precinct.

What Stands There Today

The temple occupies a substantial wooded precinct in Okusawa. Its central feature is the hall housing the nine Amida statues, the destination of pilgrims and the reason for the temple's name. The grounds are laid out with the gates, halls and garden landscaping typical of an Edo-period Jōdo foundation, and the surrounding trees give the site a seclusion unusual for a temple inside the twenty-three wards of Tokyo.

The temple gives its name to the Kuhonbutsu district and to Kuhonbutsu Station on the Tōkyū Ōimachi Line, which serves the neighbourhood. The name is thus carried by the railway network as well as by the temple itself — a common pattern in Tokyo, where Edo-period temples and shrines have given their names to stations and addresses.

The Name in Japanese

The full name is written 九品仏浄真寺. In kana it is read くほんぶつじょうしんじ, and in romaji Kuhonbutsu Jōshin-ji. The name divides into two parts: the popular prefix 九品仏 (Kuhonbutsu), which names the temple's nine statues, and the formal temple name 浄真寺 (Jōshin-ji).

九品仏 (くほんぶつ, kuhonbutsu)

• 九 — read ku here; "nine". The same character is read kyū in many compounds.
• 品 — read hon here; "grade", "rank" or "article". In this word it refers to the nine grades of rebirth in Amida's Pure Land, a classification set out in the Pure Land sutras.
• 仏 — read butsu here; "Buddha". In this compound it refers specifically to Amida Buddha.

So 九品仏 means "the nine grades of the Buddha" — the nine ranks of rebirth in the Pure Land, each represented by one of the temple's statues. The word is a piece of Buddhist technical vocabulary that has become, in everyday Tokyo usage, simply the name of a place.

浄真寺 (じょうしんじ, jōshin-ji)

• 浄 — read jō; "pure", "clean". It is the same character as in 浄土 (Jōdo), the Pure Land, the name of the temple's sect.
• 真 — read shin; "true", "real".
• 寺 — read ji; "temple". This is the standard suffix for a Buddhist temple, as in 浅草寺 (Sensō-ji) or 清水寺 (Kiyomizu-dera, where the same character is voiced to dera).

The suffix 寺 tells the reader immediately that this is a Buddhist temple rather than a Shintō shrine, which would end in 神社 (jinja) or 神宮 (jingū). The full name 九品仏浄真寺 therefore reads as "Jōshin-ji, the temple of the nine grades of the Buddha" — the popular name placed in front of the formal one, a common arrangement in Japanese temple naming.

Visiting and Context

The temple stands in Okusawa, Setagaya ward, in the south-western part of Tokyo. It is reached from Kuhonbutsu Station on the Tōkyū Ōimachi Line, which takes its name from the temple. The precinct is open to visitors, and the nine Amida statues remain the focus of the site.

For readers of Japanese, the name offers a useful lesson in how Buddhist vocabulary enters everyday geography. The word 九品 (kuhon), "nine grades", is not ordinary modern Japanese; it survives chiefly in this place name and in the doctrinal language of the Pure Land schools. The character 仏, "Buddha", appears in hundreds of temple names and in everyday words such as 仏像 (butsuzō, a Buddhist statue) and 大仏 (daibutsu, a great Buddha image). The character 寺, "temple", is one of the first kanji a learner meets, and its two readings — ji in 浄真寺 and tera in names such as 浅草寺 when voiced — repay attention early. The name Kuhonbutsu thus works on two levels at once: a doctrinal phrase about the grades of rebirth, and the everyday label of a Tokyo neighbourhood and its station.