Nison-in Temple

Overview

Nison-in (二尊院, Nison-in) is a Tendai Buddhist temple in Ukyō Ward, in the west of Kyoto. Tendai is one of the major schools of Japanese Buddhism, introduced from China in the ninth century. The temple sits in Sagano, the district on the western edge of the city that runs toward the Arashiyama hills, and its grounds occupy the lower slope of Mount Ogura.

Its official name is Ogura-yama Nison-kyō-in Keidai-ji (小倉山 二尊教院 華台寺). The temple was founded in 900, in the third year of the Shōtai era (昌泰, Shōtai), during the Heian period, the four-century stretch from 794 to 1185 when the imperial court ruled from Kyoto. Nison-in is counted as part of the Twenty-Fifth Reikyo of Dharan Shonin, a grouping of temples on a pilgrimage route.

The temple is best known today for its maple trees. In autumn, when the leaves turn, it becomes one of the busiest destinations in the Sagano and Arashiyama area.

History

Nison-in was established in 900. The date places it in the middle of the Heian period, an era when Kyoto — then called Heian-kyō — was the political and cultural centre of Japan and when Buddhist institutions in and around the city accumulated land, patronage and influence.

The temple belongs to the Tendai school, whose headquarters is Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei, northeast of Kyoto. Tendai temples founded in the Heian period were typically tied into networks of aristocratic and imperial patronage, and the Sagano district, where Nison-in stands, developed as a religious and retreat landscape on the capital's western margin.

Nison-in's formal name, Ogura-yama Nison-kyō-in Keidai-ji, ties the temple to Mount Ogura, the hill it occupies. The temple is also listed as part of the Twenty-Fifth Reikyo of Dharan Shonin, a pilgrimage association of temples.

What Stands There Today

The temple complex stands in Sagano, within Ukyō Ward, at the foot of Mount Ogura. Its grounds are laid out along a slope, with a main approach that runs uphill between trees.

The most celebrated feature is the maple foliage. Nison-in is a well-known momiji (紅葉, momiji) site — momiji being the Japanese word for the turning maple leaves of autumn, and by extension the custom of going out to view them. During the autumn viewing season the temple draws large numbers of visitors, and it is regularly named among the principal maple-viewing temples of the Sagano and Arashiyama area.

The temple is a functioning Tendai Buddhist institution, not a ruin or a museum, and it remains part of the Twenty-Fifth Reikyo of Dharan Shonin pilgrimage circuit.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's name is written 二尊院. It is read in kana as にそんいん, and in romaji as Nison-in.

Breaking it down character by character:

• 二 — read here as ni. The kanji means "two."
• 尊 — read here as son. The kanji means "honoured one" or "venerable," and in Buddhist usage it is the standard counter and honorific for a Buddha or bodhisattva image. A 二尊 (nison) is therefore "two honoured ones" — two sacred figures enshrined together.
• 院 — read here as in. The kanji originally means "institution" or "cloister," and in Japanese temple names it typically marks a sub-temple, a cloister, or a temple complex of a certain rank. It appears in the names of many Kyoto temples.

So 二尊院 means, roughly, "Temple of the Two Honoured Ones." The name refers to the two principal images worshipped at the temple, which are enshrined as a pair — the pairing is the point of the name, and it is why the temple is called Nison-in rather than something more generic.

Note the reading of 尊. Standing alone, the character is usually read son or tōtoi, and in the word 尊敬 (sonkei, "respect") it is son. In 二尊院 it keeps that son reading, so the compound runs ni + son + in.

The temple's full formal name, 小倉山 二尊教院 華台寺, adds further elements: 小倉山 (Ogura-yama) identifies Mount Ogura, 二尊教院 (Nison-kyō-in) expands the familiar name, and 華台寺 (Keidai-ji) is the temple's formal temple name. Long formal names of this kind, stacking a mountain name, a descriptive name and a temple name, are common among older Japanese temples.

Visiting and Context

Nison-in lies in Sagano, in Ukyō Ward, at coordinates roughly 35.02° north, 135.67° east — the western side of Kyoto, where the city gives way to the Arashiyama hills. The area is reached from central Kyoto by train or bus toward Arashiyama and Sagano.

The temple's location places it in one of the densest concentrations of historic religious sites in Japan. Sagano and neighbouring Arashiyama hold temples, shrines and villa sites spanning the Heian period onward, and the district is a standard day trip from the centre of Kyoto.

For visitors, the practical rhythm of Nison-in is seasonal. The maple season, momiji, is when the temple is at its most crowded and when its reputation is made; outside that window it is a quieter stop on the Sagano circuit. Because it is an active Tendai temple and part of the Twenty-Fifth Reikyo of Dharan Shonin, it also functions as a pilgrimage destination, not only a scenic one.

The founding date of 900 makes Nison-in a Heian-period foundation, contemporary with the era in which Kyoto was built as the imperial capital and in which the city's great temple institutions took shape. That date, the Tendai affiliation, and the Sagano setting together explain most of what the temple is: an old mountain-foot cloister on the western edge of the old capital, known in the present day above all for its autumn leaves.