Rokuharamitsu-ji Temple

Overview

Rokuharamitsu-ji (六波羅蜜寺) is a Buddhist temple in Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, founded in 963 during the Heian period. It belongs to the Shingon-shū Chisan-ha (真言宗智山派), a school of Japanese esoteric Buddhism, and its central object of worship is a statue of Jūichimen Kannon (十一面観音), the Eleven-Faced Avalokiteśvara, a bodhisattva of compassion. The temple sits in the Rokuhara district, from which it takes its name.

The temple's full name is Fudaraku-san Fumon-in Rokuharamitsu-ji (補陀洛山普門院六波羅蜜寺). It is the seventeenth stop on the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage (西国三十三所), a circuit of thirty-three temples across western Japan dedicated to Kannon. It also belongs to the Miyako Shichifukujin (都七福神), a Kyoto circuit of seven temples honouring the Seven Lucky Gods, to the Thirty-three Sacred Sites of Luoyang Kannon (洛陽三十三所観音霊場), and to the Shinbutsu Reijō Junpai no Michi (神仏霊場巡拝の道), a pilgrimage route linking Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples.

History

The temple was founded in 963, the third year of the Ōwa era (応和), by the monk Kūya (空也). Kūya was an itinerant preacher who travelled through the provinces of Japan during the tenth century, spreading devotion to Amida Buddha and to Kannon among ordinary people rather than the court elite. The temple he established at Rokuhara became a centre of that popular devotional movement.

Rokuhara, the neighbourhood where the temple stands, later gave its name to the Rokuhara Tandai (六波羅探題), the office through which the Kamakura shogunate governed Kyoto from the thirteenth century. The temple's association with the warrior class is preserved in one of its holdings: a wooden seated statue of a monk, traditionally identified as a portrait of Taira no Kiyomori (平清盛), the twelfth-century leader of the Taira clan who dominated the imperial court.

The temple's principal image, the Eleven-Faced Kannon, is a hibutsu (秘仏), a statue kept hidden from public view and displayed only on rare occasions. It is designated a National Treasure of Japan. The temple also holds a celebrated sculpture of Kūya himself, known as Kuya Preaching or the Sage Kuya (空也上人像), which depicts the monk with six small Amida figures emerging from his mouth — one for each syllable of the nembutsu (念仏), the invocation of Amida's name. Further National Treasure holdings include a wooden seated Jizō Bosatsu (木造地蔵菩薩坐像) and a wooden seated monk figure (木造僧形坐像).

What Stands There Today

The temple occupies a site on the edge of Higashiyama, the eastern hill district of Kyoto, close to the intersections of Rokkaku-dōri, Matsubara-dōri and Yamato-ōji. Its grounds contain the main hall, where the hidden Kannon is enshrined, and a hall dedicated to Kūya.

The temple is a stop on several pilgrimage circuits, and pilgrims following the Saigoku route arrive here as the seventeenth of thirty-three stations. The grounds also serve the Miyako Shichifukujin circuit, which links Kyoto temples associated with the Seven Lucky Gods.

The temple's collection of sculpture is its principal draw. The image of Kūya preaching, with the six Amida figures issuing from his mouth, is among the best-known works of Japanese Buddhist portraiture, and the seated Jizō and the seated monk traditionally identified as Taira no Kiyomori are likewise designated National Treasures.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's name is written 六波羅蜜寺. It is read ろくはらみつじ in kana, and rendered in romaji as Rokuharamitsu-ji.

The name breaks down into four characters:

六 — read roku here. It means "six."

波 — read ha here. It means "wave."

羅 — read ra here. It means "gauze" or "net," and in Buddhist transliteration it is used purely for its sound.

蜜 — read mitsu here. It means "honey."

Taken together, 波羅蜜 (haramitsu) is the Japanese rendering of the Sanskrit word pāramitā, meaning "perfection" or "that which has reached the other shore." The characters 波, 羅 and 蜜 were chosen for their sounds, not their meanings, to approximate the Sanskrit term. The temple is named after the six pāramitās (六波羅蜜, roku haramitsu), the six perfections a bodhisattva cultivates on the path to enlightenment: giving, moral discipline, patience, effort, meditation, and wisdom.

The final character, 寺, is read ji and means "temple." It appears at the end of the names of most Buddhist temples in Japan.

So the full name means, roughly, "the Temple of the Six Perfections." The district name Rokuhara (六波羅) is a contraction of the same first three characters, and the temple gave the district its name rather than the other way around.

Visiting and Context

Rokuharamitsu-ji stands in Higashiyama-ku, the ward that contains many of Kyoto's best-known temples, including Kiyomizu-dera and Sanjūsangen-dō. It is a short walk from the Rokkaku-dōri and Matsubara-dōri intersection, and the surrounding Rokuhara neighbourhood preserves the name of the medieval administrative office that once governed the city for the Kamakura shogunate.

For students of Japanese, the temple's name is a useful case study in how Buddhist Sanskrit terminology entered the language. The characters 波, 羅 and 蜜 carry no relevant meaning of their own in this word; they were selected because their Chinese pronunciations approximated the sounds of pāramitā. Recognising this pattern — kanji used as phonetic stand-ins for foreign religious vocabulary — helps when reading the names of other temples, sutras and deities.