Mitaki-dera Temple

Overview

Mitaki-dera (三瀧寺, みたきでら, Mitaki-dera) is a Buddhist temple in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. It was founded in 809, the fourth year of the Daidō era (大同, だいどう), during the Heian period (794–1185). The temple sits in Nishi-ku, one of the wards of the city of Hiroshima, at coordinates 34.4202944, 132.4376167. It belongs to two pilgrimage circuits: the Chūgoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage and the 88 Sacred Sites of Shikoku.

History

Mitaki-dera was established in 809, a date that places its founding in the first decades of the Heian period. The Heian period ran from 794 to 1185, an era in which Buddhism spread from the imperial court outward across the provinces and in which new schools of Japanese Buddhism took shape. The temple's founding year falls in the Daidō era, specifically its fourth year.

The temple's recorded history includes destruction. This places Mitaki-dera among the many Japanese religious sites that were damaged or lost and later rebuilt, a pattern common to temples that survived through the medieval and early modern centuries.

What Stands There Today

Mitaki-dera stands in Nishi-ku, in the city of Hiroshima. The temple is counted as a stop on the Chūgoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage, a circuit of temples across the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, and also on the 88 Sacred Sites of Shikoku. The Shikoku circuit is traditionally associated with the monk Kūkai, though the FACTS block does not state a connection between Kūkai and Mitaki-dera, and none should be assumed.

The temple's setting in Nishi-ku places it within the modern urban area of Hiroshima, a city rebuilt after 1945. The temple's own recorded destruction is noted in the historical record without a date in the source material.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's name in Japanese is 三瀧寺. Its reading in kana is みたきでら, and its romaji is Mitaki-dera.

Breaking the name down character by character:

• 三 — read here as み (mi). The character means "three."
• 瀧 — read here as たき (taki). The character means "waterfall" or "rapids." This is the older, traditional form of the character now usually written 滝, which carries the same meaning and reading.
• 寺 — read here as でら (dera). The character means "temple." When it appears as the second element of a temple name, it is normally voiced to dera rather than tera, a common sound change in Japanese compound words.

So the name as a whole means "Three Waterfalls Temple." The reading Mitaki for the first two characters reflects the Japanese native reading (kun'yomi) of both 三 and 瀧, while 寺 supplies the temple suffix. The name is a good example of how Japanese temple names often combine a descriptive place feature — here, waterfalls — with the generic element 寺.

Note the sound change in 寺: standing alone the character is read tera, but inside this name it becomes dera. Learners will meet the same shift in names such as Kiyomizu-dera and Tōdai-ji, where the temple element takes a voiced or otherwise modified form depending on what precedes it.

Visiting and Context

Mitaki-dera is located in Nishi-ku, Hiroshima, in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu. Its coordinates are 34.4202944, 132.4376167. The temple is a stop on the Chūgoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage and on the 88 Sacred Sites of Shikoku.

For readers studying Japanese, the name offers a compact lesson in kanji readings. The character 三 is one of the first numerals a learner encounters, normally read san in Sino-Japanese compounds but mi in native Japanese counting. The character 瀧 (or its modern form 滝) appears in place names across Japan wherever waterfalls are found. The character 寺 is one of the most productive elements in Japanese temple names, and recognising its voiced form dera helps when reading names such as Mitaki-dera.

The temple's founding in 809 ties it to the early Heian period, a span of Japanese history when the capital stood at Heian-kyō, the city now called Kyoto, and when Buddhist institutions were expanding beyond the court into the provinces. Mitaki-dera's membership in two pilgrimage circuits reflects the long tradition of Japanese pilgrimage, in which worshippers travel between fixed sets of temples, often numbering thirty-three or eighty-eight, each associated with the bodhisattva Kannon. The Chūgoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage covers the Chūgoku region, while the 88 Sacred Sites of Shikoku circles the island of Shikoku; Mitaki-dera's inclusion in both links a Hiroshima temple to circuits centred elsewhere in western Japan.