Naritasan Kurume Bun-in Temple

Overview

Naritasan Kurume Bun-in Temple (成田山久留米分院, Naritasan Kurume Bun'in) is a Buddhist temple of the Shingon school in the city of Kurume, in Fukuoka Prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu. It is a direct branch temple of Narita-san Shinshō-ji, the great Shingon centre in the city of Narita, Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo. The temple is also known simply as Kurume Narita-san (久留米成田山). It was founded in 1958, the thirty-third year of the Shōwa era.

History

The temple belongs to the Shingon school (真言宗, Shingon-shū), one of the major schools of Japanese Buddhism, which traces its lineage to the monk Kūkai and centres on esoteric ritual practice. Narita-san Shinshō-ji, its parent temple, is among the most visited religious sites in Japan, and the Kurume branch was established to carry that tradition to Kyushu.

The foundation date is 1958, which falls in the Shōwa era (昭和, Shōwa), the reign of the emperor Shōwa spanning 1926 to 1989. In the Japanese era system (年号, nengō), the year is counted as Shōwa 33. The late 1950s were a period of rapid economic growth and reconstruction across Japan, and the founding of a branch temple of a major Kantō pilgrimage site in a Kyushu city reflects the reach of that parent temple's network in the post-war decades.

What Stands There Today

The temple's principal feature is the Jibō Kannon (治宝観音, Jibō Kannon), a figure of Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion. Kannon (観音, Kannon) is one of the most widely venerated figures in Japanese Buddhism, and large statues of the bodhisattva are common at temples across the country. The Jibō Kannon is the element of the site singled out as its defining monument.

The temple stands in Kurume, a city in central Fukuoka Prefecture. Its grounds sit at coordinates 33.2849° north, 130.5352° east.

The Name in Japanese

The full name is written 成田山久留米分院. In kana it reads なりたさんくるめぶんいん, and in romaji Naritasan Kurume Bun'in. Note that the final 院 is written いん in kana but is conventionally romanised in after a syllable, giving bun'in rather than bunin.

The name breaks down as follows:

• 成 — read na here. It means "to become" or "to accomplish". In place names it is often read nari.
• 田 — read ta here. It means "rice field" or "paddy". Together, 成田 (Narita) is a place name: the city in Chiba Prefecture where the parent temple, Shinshō-ji, stands.
• 山 — read san here. It means "mountain". In temple names, 山 is the sangō (山号, sangō), a formal "mountain name" that Buddhist temples carry in addition to their ordinary name. So 成田山 (Naritasan) means "Mount Narita" and identifies the temple's lineage back to Narita.
• 久 — read ku here. It means "long" or "lasting".
• 留 — read ru here. It means "to stay" or "to detain".
• 米 — read me here. It means "rice". Together, 久留米 (Kurume) is the name of the city in Fukuoka Prefecture where the temple is located.
• 分 — read bun here. It means "part", "portion" or "branch". In institutional names it marks a subdivision of a larger body.
• 院 — read in here. It means "institution" or "cloister", and is the standard suffix for a temple or religious house.

Read as a whole, the name says exactly what the temple is: the Kurume branch (分院, bun'in) of the Narita mountain temple (成田山, Naritasan). The structure is a common one for Japanese branch temples, where the parent temple's name is placed first and the local place name and the word for "branch" follow.

Visiting and Context

Kurume lies in the Chikugo region of Fukuoka Prefecture, on the island of Kyushu. For a student of Japanese, the temple's name is a compact lesson in how Buddhist institutions are named: a mountain name inherited from a parent temple, a place name, and a suffix marking branch status. The same pattern appears in the names of many branch temples across Japan, so the vocabulary here — 山 for a temple's mountain name, 分院 for a branch, 院 for a temple itself — transfers directly to reading other temple names.

The temple also illustrates the reach of the great Kantō pilgrimage centres. Narita-san Shinshō-ji draws millions of visitors each year, and its branch in Kurume extends that network to Kyushu. The Jibō Kannon gives the site its focal image, and the temple's identity is bound up with the devotion to Kannon that the parent temple promotes.