Shōfuku-ji Temple

Overview

Shōfuku-ji (正福寺, しょうふくじ) is a Rinzai Zen Buddhist temple in Higashimurayama, a city in the western reaches of Tokyo Prefecture. The temple was founded in 1270, in the seventh year of the Bun'ei era (文永, ぶんえい), during the Kamakura period (1185–1333). Its principal claim on the historical record is architectural: the temple's Jizō Hall is a registered National Treasure of Japan, is considered the oldest intact building in Tokyo Prefecture, and is a rare surviving example of Kamakura-period architecture.

History

Shōfuku-ji was established in 1270, a date that places its founding in the middle of the Kamakura period, when political power in Japan rested with the shogunate at Kamakura rather than with the imperial court in Kyoto. The temple belongs to the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism, the tradition that Japanese monks had begun importing from Song-dynasty China in the preceding decades.

The temple's Jizō Hall, the structure for which it is now chiefly known, dates from the early fifteenth century — later than the temple's own foundation by well over a century. The building is a registered National Treasure of Japan, and it is regarded as the oldest intact building in Tokyo Prefecture.

What Stands There Today

The Jizō Hall is the centrepiece of the temple grounds. It is a unique example of Kamakura-period architecture, and its survival in Tokyo Prefecture makes it the oldest intact building in the prefecture. The hall is registered as a National Treasure of Japan.

The temple stands at coordinates 35.7647639, 139.4594722, in Higashimurayama.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's name is written 正福寺. Its kana reading is しょうふくじ, and its romaji is Shōfuku-ji. The name translates literally as "Temple of the Correct Fortune".

Broken down character by character:

• 正 — read here as しょう (shō). The character means "correct", "right", or "upright". It is the same character used in 正解 (せいかい, seikai, "correct answer") and in the everyday word 正しい (ただしい, tadashii, "correct").
• 福 — read here as ふく (fuku). The character means "fortune", "good luck", or "blessing". It appears in 福 (ふく, fuku, "good fortune") and in the name of the deity 福神 (ふくじん, fukujin, "god of fortune").
• 寺 — read here as じ (ji). The character means "temple" and is the standard suffix for a Buddhist temple's name. It appears in countless temple names across Japan, such as 東寺 (とうじ, Tō-ji) in Kyoto.

Note the sound change in the final character. Standing alone, 寺 is read てら (tera). When it follows another element in a temple name it typically shifts to じ (ji), as here. The same shift is why the compound is Shōfuku-ji and not Shōfuku-tera.

The reading しょう for 正 is the on'yomi, the Sino-Japanese reading borrowed from Chinese. The reading ふく for 福 is likewise an on'yomi. Both characters are common enough that a learner will meet them early: 正 in words about correctness, 福 in words about luck and in the names of shrines and temples.

Visiting and Context

Shōfuku-ji sits in Higashimurayama, in western Tokyo Prefecture, well outside the central wards that most visitors associate with the city. The temple is a Rinzai Zen establishment, and its grounds are home to the Jizō Hall, the early fifteenth-century building that carries its National Treasure designation.

For a reader of Japanese, the temple's name is a compact lesson in how temple names are built. A quality or virtue (正, "correct") is paired with a blessing (福, "fortune"), and the whole is closed with the temple suffix 寺, read じ. The same three-part pattern recurs in temple names throughout Japan, which makes 正福寺 a useful model to carry to other names encountered on maps and signboards.

The temple's dates give a sense of the layers involved. The foundation belongs to 1270, in the Kamakura period; the Jizō Hall belongs to the early fifteenth century. A visitor standing before the hall is looking at a building younger than the temple's founding but old enough to be the oldest intact structure in the prefecture — a reminder that "oldest surviving" and "original" are different things, and that the Japanese architectural record is read through what has lasted rather than what was first built.