Unpen-ji Temple

Overview

Unpen-ji (雲辺寺, うんぺんじ) is a Shingon Buddhist temple in Miyoshi, Tokushima Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku. It is Temple 66 of the Shikoku Pilgrimage, the circuit of 88 sacred sites that circles the island. The temple was founded in 789, the eighth year of the Enryaku era, during the Nara period.

Its position is the most striking thing about it. Unpen-ji sits at 927 metres above sea level, the highest point reached anywhere on the 88-temple route. Pilgrims who walk the circuit must climb to it, and the climb is the steepest single ascent on the pilgrimage.

The temple belongs to the Shingon school, the form of esoteric Buddhism established in Japan by Kūkai in the early ninth century. It is also counted among the Awa Hikyō Shichifukujin (阿波秘境七福神), a group of seven remote temples in the old Awa region associated with the Seven Lucky Gods.

History

Unpen-ji was founded in 789, in the eighth year of Enryaku, the era name used during the reign of Emperor Kanmu. That places its founding in the Nara period, which ran from 710 to 794 — the last years of an era when the Japanese state was still centred on the capital at Nara and Buddhism was being organised as a state religion.

The temple stands in the locality of Ikedachō Hakuchi in Miyoshi. Miyoshi lies in the mountainous interior of Tokushima, in the western part of the prefecture, and the temple's great elevation reflects that geography.

Within the pilgrimage's ordering, Unpen-ji follows Sankaku-ji, Temple 65, and is followed by Daikō-ji, Temple 67. This sequence places it in the middle of the Tokushima leg of the route, before the pilgrim crosses into Kōchi Prefecture.

What Stands There Today

The temple occupies the summit area of a mountain ridge, and the approach to it is made on foot or by a ropeway. Because it is the highest temple on the circuit, the grounds are exposed and the weather can change quickly; the site is known for the view over the surrounding mountains of Shikoku.

As a Shingon temple on the pilgrimage, Unpen-ji maintains the standard furnishings of a pilgrimage temple: a main hall housing the principal image, a hall for the temple's founder-figure, and a place where pilgrims receive their nōkyō — the red seal and calligraphic inscription stamped into a pilgrim's book as proof of the visit. Pilgrims arriving here have completed the Tokushima portion of the route and are approaching the boundary with Kōchi.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's name is written 雲辺寺. It is read うんぺんじ in kana, and rendered in romaji as Unpen-ji.

Breaking it down character by character:

• 雲 — read un here. The character means "cloud". On its own in modern Japanese it is usually read kumo.
• 辺 — read pen here, a voiced variant of hen. The character means "edge", "border", "surroundings" or "vicinity". It is a common element in Japanese place names, where it often marks a boundary or a peripheral area.
• 寺 — read ji here. The character means "temple" and is the standard suffix for a Buddhist temple's name in Japanese. It appears in the names of most of the 88 pilgrimage sites.

So the name as a whole carries the sense of "cloud-edge temple" or "temple at the edge of the clouds" — a name that fits a foundation sitting at 927 metres, high enough to be inside the cloud layer on many days.

Two notes on reading. First, unpen is not the ordinary everyday reading of 雲辺; the combination is specific to this temple, which is why the kana reading is worth learning alongside the characters. Second, the final 寺 is voiced to ji rather than tera, the other common reading of the same character. Both readings are standard for temple names, and which one applies must be learned temple by temple.

Visiting and Context

Unpen-ji is the 66th of the 88 temples of the Shikoku Pilgrimage, a route traditionally walked in numerical order. Pilgrims on foot, known as o-henro, travel between the temples in white coats and straw hats, carrying staffs, and mark each visit with a seal. The full circuit covers roughly 1,200 kilometres across all four prefectures of Shikoku.

The temple's location in Miyoshi places it in the mountainous interior rather than on the coastal plain, and its height of 927 metres makes it the high point of the entire route. For pilgrims walking the circuit, reaching Unpen-ji is the hardest climb of the journey and, for many, the most memorable view.

Because it follows Sankaku-ji and precedes Daikō-ji, Unpen-ji sits near the end of the Tokushima section of the pilgrimage. The next stage of the route carries the pilgrim onward toward Kōchi Prefecture and the temples of the southern coast.