Shinshū Ōtani-ha Hakodate Betsu-in Temple

Overview

The Shinshū Ōtani-ha Hakodate Betsu-in (真宗大谷派函館別院) is a Buddhist temple in Hakodate, on the southern tip of Hokkaidō, Japan. It belongs to the Ōtani-ha, the Ōtani branch of the Jōdo Shinshū school, whose head temple is Higashi Hongan-ji in Kyoto. A betsu-in (別院) is a branch temple — a regional outpost of a head temple rather than an independent foundation — and this one serves as the Ōtani-ha's principal centre in Hakodate.

The temple was founded in 1641, the eighteenth year of the Kan'ei era, during the Edo period. Its present buildings are far newer than that date suggests: the temple burned in 1907 and was rebuilt in the twentieth century, and the main hall that stands today is the first reinforced-concrete temple building in Japan.

History

The temple's founding in 1641 places it early in the Edo period, when Hakodate was a small settlement on the coast of what was then called Ezo, the northern island not yet organised as Hokkaidō. The Ōtani-ha established a branch temple there to serve the Jōdo Shinshū community in the far north.

The temple stood through the remainder of the Edo period and into the modern era. In 1907 a fire destroyed the buildings. The reconstruction that followed was not a conventional wooden rebuild. The temple was raised in reinforced concrete, making it the first temple in Japan built in that material. The choice reflected both the fire that had just destroyed the old structure and the engineering confidence of early twentieth-century Japan.

The rebuilding was carried out over roughly two decades. The bell tower and the main gate were completed between 1912 and 1925, and the main hall dates to 1915. All three — the Hondō, the Shōrō and the Shōmon — have been designated Important Cultural Properties of Japan.

What Stands There Today

Three structures carry the temple's architectural significance.

The Hondō (本堂), the main hall, was completed in 1915. It is the building that gives the temple its place in Japanese architectural history: the first temple in the country constructed from reinforced concrete.

The Shōrō (鐘楼) is the bell tower, and the Shōmon (山門) is the main gate. Both were built between 1912 and 1925. Together with the Hondō, they form the group of buildings recognised as Important Cultural Properties.

The temple stands in Hakodate at coordinates 41.7630140, 140.7137500, in the city's historic temple district.

The Name in Japanese

The full Japanese name is 真宗大谷派函館別院, read in kana as しんしゅうおおたにははこだてべついん, and romanised as Shinshū Ōtani-ha Hakodate Betsu-in. The name is a stack of institutional labels, and each element tells the reader where the temple sits in the Japanese Buddhist world.

真 — read shin here. Meaning: true, genuine. In Buddhist compounds it often carries the sense of "true" or "orthodox" teaching.

宗 — read shū here. Meaning: sect, school, doctrine. Together, 真宗 (Shinshū) is the name of the school: the "True School," the Jōdo Shinshū tradition founded by Shinran in the thirteenth century.

大 — read ō here. Meaning: great, large.

谷 — read tani here. Meaning: valley. Together, 大谷 (Ōtani) is a place name in Kyoto and the name of the family line that has led the school; 大谷派 (Ōtani-ha) is the Ōtani branch, the faction whose head temple is Higashi Hongan-ji. The ha (派) means "faction" or "school."

函 — read hako here. Meaning: box, chest. In this word it is used for its sound.

館 — read date here. Meaning: building, hall, mansion. Together, 函館 (Hakodate) is the city in southern Hokkaidō where the temple stands. The characters are ateji — chosen for their sound rather than their literal sense — so the name does not mean "box mansion."

別 — read betsu here. Meaning: separate, distinct, branch.

院 — read in here. Meaning: temple, institution. Together, 別院 (betsu-in) means "branch temple" — a subordinate temple of a head temple, which is exactly what this building is.

Read as a whole, the name says: the Hakodate branch temple of the Ōtani branch of the True School.

Visiting and Context

The temple sits in Hakodate, a port city whose history is bound up with the opening of Japan to foreign trade in the nineteenth century and with the northern frontier of the Edo period. Its founding in 1641 makes it one of the older religious sites in the city, though the buildings a visitor sees are products of the twentieth century.

The temple is a working Ōtani-ha branch temple, not a museum, and it is active as the school's regional centre in Hakodate. Its three Important Cultural Properties — the 1915 Hondō, the Shōrō and the Shōmon of 1912–1925 — make it a documented stop for anyone tracing the introduction of reinforced concrete into Japanese religious architecture.