Rurikō-ji Temple

Overview

Rurikō-ji (瑠璃光寺) is a Buddhist temple in the Kozan neighbourhood of Yamaguchi, the capital city of Yamaguchi Prefecture in western Honshū. It belongs to the Sōtō school of Japanese Zen, and its honzon — the principal image enshrined in the main hall — is a statue of Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of healing. The temple's full name is Honeizan Rurikōzen-ji (保寧山瑠璃光禪寺).

The temple is best known for its five-storied pagoda, a Muromachi-period structure designated a National Treasure. Temple and park together occupy a wooded site that has made the name Rurikō-ji a byword for Yamaguchi itself.

History

Rurikō-ji was founded in 1471, the third year of the Bunmei era (文明), during the Muromachi period. That era name — nengō (年号) in Japanese — was used for the years 1469 to 1487, and it falls in the middle of a century of civil war that reshaped Japan's political order.

The temple's origins lie with the Ōuchi family, the warrior house that ruled much of western Honshū from their base in Yamaguchi. The founder was Ōuchi Masahiro, who built the temple to honour his father, Ōuchi Norihiro. Norihiro had died in 1465, and Masahiro — a powerful daimyō who had spent years campaigning in Kyoto during the Ōnin War — chose the family's home city for the memorial temple.

The five-storied pagoda was completed in 1471, the same year as the temple's foundation. It was built as Norihiro's memorial tower, and it is the structure that has carried the temple's reputation ever since.

The Ōuchi house did not survive the century. Ōuchi Yoshioki, who succeeded Masahiro, died in 1528, and the family's power collapsed soon after. In 1551, the retainer Sue Harukata rebelled and destroyed Ōuchi Yoshitaka, the last of the line's effective rulers, at the Taineiji temple in Nagato. Yamaguchi's brief period as a centre of courtly and Zen culture — sometimes called the "Kyoto of the west" — ended with it. Rurikō-ji survived the upheaval, and the pagoda has stood on the site ever since.

What Stands There Today

The five-storied pagoda is the temple's central monument and the reason most visitors come. It is a wooden tower in the classic Japanese form: a square base, five diminishing roofs, and a spire (sōrin, 相輪) rising from the top. Its proportions are unusually slender, and its upper storeys carry no balconies, a feature that gives the silhouette its distinctive lightness. The pagoda is designated a National Treasure, the highest category of protection Japan assigns to cultural property.

The temple grounds are laid out as a park, with the pagoda set among trees and a pond. The site is known for its seasonal display: cherry blossoms in spring, and in autumn the maples that give the temple its name turn the slopes around the pagoda red and gold. The temple's main hall and other buildings stand nearby, and the honzon, the Yakushi Nyorai image, is enshrined there.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's name is written 瑠璃光寺. It is read るりこうじ in kana, and transcribed in romaji as Rurikō-ji. The long ō in the middle is a lengthened vowel — the name is four morae in Japanese: ru-ri-kō-ji.

Broken down character by character:

• 瑠 — read ru here. The character means a deep blue or lapis lazuli, a precious stone prized in ancient Japan and associated with Buddhist imagery.
• 璃 — read ri here. It also refers to lapis lazuli or a glassy, jewel-like substance. The two characters together, 瑠璃 (ruri), are the standard Japanese word for lapis lazuli, and by extension for a deep, clear blue.
• 光 — read kō here. It means light, radiance, or glory.
• 寺 — read ji here. It means temple, and it is the ordinary suffix attached to the name of a Buddhist temple.

So the name as a whole means something like "Temple of the Radiance of Lapis Lazuli." The phrase 瑠璃光 (rurikō) is not a random poetic image: it is a Buddhist term. Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of healing who is this temple's honzon, is also called Yakushi Rurikō Nyorai — the Medicine Master of Lapis Lazuli Light. In Buddhist texts his realm in the east is described as a pure land of lapis lazuli, and the light that streams from his body is compared to the stone's deep blue. The temple's name therefore points directly at the deity enshrined inside it: this is the temple of the lapis lazuli light of Yakushi.

The full formal name adds two elements in front. 保寧山 (Honeizan) is the sangō (山号), the "mountain name" that Japanese temples traditionally carry even when, as here, they sit on flat ground. 禪寺 (zenji) at the end marks it as a Zen temple — 禪 is the character for Zen, and 寺 is temple again.

Visiting and Context

Rurikō-ji sits in the Kozan district of central Yamaguchi, within walking distance of Yamaguchi Station on the JR Yamaguchi Line. The grounds are open to visitors, and the pagoda can be viewed from the surrounding park throughout the year.

For readers studying Japanese, the name is worth memorising as a set. 瑠璃 (ruri) appears in words for lapis lazuli and for deep blue; 光 (hikari, kō) is one of the most common characters for light; and 寺 (tera, ji) is the standard element in temple names, read tera on its own and ji in compounds such as this one. Yamaguchi itself is a useful word to know: 山口 (Yamaguchi) means "mountain mouth," a fitting name for a city set among hills.