Hōkō-ji Audio Guide

Hōkō-ji: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Hōkō-ji

   Welcome to Hōkō-ji, written 方廣寺 in its local form, a temple in Kyoto's Higashiyama Ward. It sits right beside Toyokuni Shrine, and it belongs to the Tendai school of Buddhism. Its principal image is Birushana, the cosmic Buddha known in Sanskrit as Vairocana. The temple is far smaller than its reputation. For centuries, ordinary Kyotoans simply called it the Daibutsu, the Great Buddha, or the Daibutsuden, the Great Buddha Hall. It began as one of the most ambitious building projects of the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Over the years it has been shaken by earthquake, burned by fire and struck by lightning, and it was even tangled up in the road to war. Over the next few stops, we will look at Hideyoshi's giant Buddhas and their repeated losses. Then we will turn to an enormous bell with an inscription that helped set off a war. After that, we will look at the odd fact that this temple long went without an official name, and at how its old title still lingers in the neighborhood.

2. 02

   Hideyoshi's Great Buddha of Hōkō-ji

   Picture Kyoto in the late sixteenth century. Toyotomi Hideyoshi has brought the country under his control, and he decides the capital needs a Great Buddha to rival the famous one at Tōdai-ji in Nara. Tradition says he boasted at the outset that he would finish in half the time it took Emperor Shōmu to complete the Great Buddha of Nara. Work began in 1588, on ground in the area where the Kyoto National Museum stands today. The project was dogged by bad luck. A great earthquake brought the work down, and fire destroyed it as well. On January 15, 1602, a fire caused by careless workmen consumed both the great Buddha image and the hall that housed it. The project was finally completed in 1612 under Hideyoshi's son, Hideyori. The story of the buildings did not end there. When Tōdai-ji's Great Buddha Hall was rebuilt, with work finishing in 1709, its design took the second Hōkō-ji hall as a model. So the Great Buddha Hall you may know in Nara carries echoes of the Kyoto one. For nearly 90 years, from 1709 until lightning burned the Kyoto Buddha and its hall in 1798, two Great Buddhas stood side by side, one in Nara and one in Kyoto. A smaller Buddha was rebuilt in 1843 and lasted until March 28, 1973, when an accidental fire destroyed it. After that, the Great Buddha vanished from Hōkō-ji.

3. 03

   The Bell That Helped Start a War at Hōkō-ji

   Now to the object that made Hōkō-ji famous across Japan: its giant bell. It was cast in 1612 by founders of Kyoto's Sanjō Kamanza foundry district, among them Nagoe Sanshō. It stands 4.2 meters tall, with an outer diameter of 2.8 meters and a thickness of 0.27 meters. It weighs 82.7 tons. It ranks as one of the three great bells of Japan, alongside the bells of Tōdai-ji in Nara and Chion-in in Kyoto, and it is a designated Important Cultural Property. Its fame comes from the inscription. Carved into the bronze are the characters for Kokka Ankō and Kunshin Hōraku, a wish for the peace of the country and for joy between lord and vassal. In 1614, the way those characters were arranged became a flashpoint. The characters of Tokugawa Ieyasu's name, in Japanese Ieyasu, were seen as having been cut apart within the phrase Kokka Ankō. That reading became the trigger for the Winter Campaign of Osaka, the siege that began the final clash between the Tokugawa and the Toyotomi. Historians know the episode as the bell inscription incident. It is a reminder that a few characters on a bronze surface can carry enormous political weight. When you stand near the bell, imagine all of that pressure resting on its inscription.

4. 04

   A Temple Without a Name at Hōkō-ji

   Here is a curious puzzle. The name Hōkō-ji does not appear in documents from the temple's founding through the early Edo period. People simply said the Great Buddha, the Great Buddha Hall, or variations such as the New Great Buddha, the Kyoto Great Buddha, or the Great Buddha of Higashiyama. Hideyoshi himself never fixed a formal temple name. He apparently saw no other statue in Japan as truly deserving of the title Great Buddha, so in effect the name of the temple was the Great Buddha. How the name Hōkō-ji arose, and when, remains unclear. It seems to have emerged naturally. Some think it came from the Avatamsaka Sutra, the Flower Garland Sutra, or from a ceremony called the Hōkō-e. Others suggest it also doubled as a nod to Hideyoshi's honorific title, Hōkō. The old name still lives in the neighborhood. Daibutsu became the name of the whole district around the temple. Sanjūsangendō was once folded into the temple grounds, and the land where the Kyoto National Museum now stands also belonged to the temple. Local names such as the Daibutsu-mae police box and the Kyoto Daibutsu-mae post office are echoes of that history. So is the former Keihan station of Daibutsu-mae, now called Shichijō.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off from Hōkō-ji

   Hōkō-ji rewards a slow look. This is a place where a modest present-day setting hides an outsized past: a Buddha built to outdo Nara, halls lost to earthquake, fire and lightning, and a bell whose inscription helped fuel a war. As you wander, notice how close Hōkō-ji sits to Toyokuni Shrine, which neighbors it, and how both belong to the story of Hideyoshi's legacy. Think about how much the surrounding streets still carry the old word Daibutsu in their names, even though the great statue itself is gone. And if you stand near the great bell, ask yourself how a few carved characters, written to wish for peace, came to be read in a way that led toward conflict. Keep that question in mind as you continue through Higashiyama.