Yoshimine-dera Temple

Overview

Yoshimine-dera (善峯寺) is a Buddhist temple in the Ōharano neighbourhood of Nishikyō Ward, at the south-western edge of Kyoto. It belongs to the Tendai school of Japanese Buddhism, and its honzon — the principal sacred images enshrined in the main hall — are two hibutsu statues of Jūichimen Kannon, the eleven-faced form of the bodhisattva of compassion. Hibutsu (秘仏) means "secret Buddha": the statues are kept hidden from public view, a practice found at a number of Japan's older temples.

The temple's full name is Nishiyama Yoshimine-dera (西山善峯寺), "West Mountain Yoshimine Temple". Its buildings are scattered across the mountainside rather than gathered on a single flat precinct, and the grounds sit on Yoshimine, a north-eastern spur of Mount Shaka, which rises 630.8 metres above sea level.

Yoshimine-dera is the twentieth stop on the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage, a circuit of thirty-three temples in western Japan dedicated to Kannon. It also belongs to the Shinbutsu Reijō Junpai no Michi, a pilgrimage route linking sites associated with the blending of Shinto and Buddhist practice, and to the Kyoto Rakusai Kannon Reijō, a local thirty-three temple circuit in the western hills of Kyoto.

History

The temple was founded in 1023, during the Heian period (794–1185). In the Japanese era system, that year fell in Jian 3 — the third year of the Jian era (治安), a nengō or era name used in the early eleventh century.

The Heian period was the age in which the great temples of Kyoto's surrounding hills took shape, and Yoshimine-dera belongs to that wave of mountain foundations. The site's position on a spur of Mount Shaka, looking back over the city, follows a pattern common to Heian Buddhist foundations: a location removed from the capital yet within reach of it, suited to both retreat and pilgrimage.

What Stands There Today

The temple's structures are distributed across the mountainside, so a visit involves walking the slope between halls rather than crossing a single courtyard. The main object of worship remains the pair of hibutsu Jūichimen Kannon images, concealed from view.

Because the temple is the twentieth station on the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage, it receives pilgrims travelling the thirty-three-temple circuit as well as ordinary visitors. Its membership in the Shinbutsu Reijō Junpai no Michi and the Kyoto Rakusai Kannon Reijō places it within two further networks of devotional travel, one concerned with the historical fusion of Shinto and Buddhist worship and one confined to the western districts of Kyoto.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's name is written 善峯寺. It is read よしみねでら in kana, and romanised as Yoshimine-dera.

Broken down character by character:

• 善 — read yoshi here. The character means "good", "virtuous" or "wholesome". In Japanese Buddhist vocabulary it carries the sense of moral goodness and merit, and it appears in the names of many temples and deities.
• 峯 — read mine here. This is a variant form of 峰, meaning "peak" or "summit". The reading mine is the native Japanese word for a mountain peak, and it is common in place names in mountainous country. The choice of this variant rather than the plainer 峰 gives the name a slightly elevated, literary look.
• 寺 — read dera here. The character means "temple". Its Sino-Japanese reading is ji, which is why so many Japanese temple names end in -ji; dera is the native Japanese reading, and it appears after certain name elements, as it does here.

The compound therefore reads as something like "Virtuous Peak Temple". Note that the first two characters are not read with their Sino-Japanese pronunciations (zen and hō) but with native Japanese readings, yoshi and mine — a pattern called jukujikun, in which a kanji compound is read according to Japanese words rather than the characters' Chinese-derived sounds. The final 寺 takes the native reading dera for the same reason. The full name, 西山善峯寺, adds 西山 — nishiyama, "west mountain" — read with its ordinary Sino-Japanese sounds.

For learners, the practical point is that 寺 has two common readings: ji in names like 東寺 (Tōji) and 清水寺 (Kiyomizu-dera), and dera in names like this one. Both are correct; which one applies is a matter of the individual temple's established name.

Visiting and Context

Yoshimine-dera stands in Nishikyō Ward, in the Ōharano area, on the south-western side of Kyoto. The coordinates of the site are 34.9381720, 135.6442030. The grounds occupy the slope of Yoshimine on Mount Shaka, which reaches 630.8 metres, and the buildings are spread across that mountainside.

For readers of Japanese, the temple's name is a useful case study in how kanji compounds take native readings, and its full name, Nishiyama Yoshimine-dera, shows the two reading types side by side in a single phrase. For readers interested in pilgrimage, Yoshimine-dera's position as the twentieth stop on the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage makes it one of the thirty-three sites that together define one of Japan's oldest surviving devotional circuits, and its additional membership in the Shinbutsu Reijō Junpai no Michi and the Kyoto Rakusai Kannon Reijō connects it to two further routes through the same region.