Tofukuji Temple Audio Guide for Kyoto

Inside this guide

1. 01

   Welcome to Tofuku-ji

   In 東福寺 (Tofuku-ji), this section highlights Welcome to Tofuku-ji as a point to understand and notice during the visit.

   Welcome to Tofuku-ji, in the Honmachi district of Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto. You are standing at the southeastern edge of the old city, close to where Higashiyama meets Fushimi, with the Sennyu-ji temple grounds just to the east. Tofuku-ji is the head temple of the Rinzai Zen school's Tofuku-ji branch. Its mountain name is Enichi-san, and its principal image is Shakyamuni Buddha. Among Kyoto's Five Great Zen Temples, the Gozan, it ranked fourth, and it flourished through both medieval and early modern centuries. One note before we begin. Much of the earliest history here comes from the temple's own records and later chronicles, so where I give a date, treat it as the traditional account rather than a modern archaeological certainty. What those accounts describe is remarkable enough: a grieving regent, a name assembled from two great temples in Nara, a Shakyamuni image about fifteen meters tall, and a founding abbot who had only recently come home from China. Today Tofuku-ji is famous for its great gate, for wooden bridges that step across a narrow valley, and for maples that turn the whole hillside red in late autumn. Let us walk back to the beginning.

2. 02

   A Regent's Vow and a Borrowed Name

   In 東福寺 (Tofuku-ji), this section highlights A Regent's Vow and a Borrowed Name as a point to understand and notice during the visit.

   Tofuku-ji begins in 1236, when Kujo Michiie, who served as regent, vowed to build a great temple on this ground. The sources describe it as a family temple for the Kujo line, and some accounts say specifically that it was meant to pray for the repose of his grandfather, Kujo Kanezane. The name he chose was a small act of ambition: one character from Todai-ji and one from Kofuku-ji, the two mightiest temples in Nara, joined together as Tofuku-ji. The site was already sacred long before him. In 924, Fujiwara no Tadahira founded Hossho-ji here as the family temple of the Fujiwara. Later, Fujiwara no Michinaga built a Godai-do hall on this ground; Fujiwara no Tadamichi and his wife built the Saisho Kongo-in; and Kujo Kanezane raised a villa called Tsukinowa-dono, along with an Amida hall. So when Michiie broke ground, he was building on centuries of another family's devotion. The scale of the project matched the ambition. Work on the Buddha hall began in 1239 and was finished in 1255, nineteen years after the original vow. The great Shakyamuni image itself was completed in 1249. Michiie did not live to see the end. He died in 1252, and his intention was carried forward by Kujo Yoritsune, also known as Fujiwara no Yoritsune, together with Ichijo Sanetsune and Nijo Yoshizane.

3. 03

   Enni and the Road from Song China

   In 東福寺 (Tofuku-ji), this section highlights Enni and the Road from Song China as a point to understand and notice during the visit.

   Every temple has a founder, and Tofuku-ji's is worth knowing. His name was Enni Ben'en, honored after death as Shoichi Kokushi. He came from Tochizawa in Suruga province, in what is now the Aoi ward of Shizuoka City. In 1235 he sailed to Song-dynasty China and entered the circle of the renowned master Wuzhun Shifan at the Jingshan monastery, where he received inka, the seal that a student has inherited the teaching. He returned to Japan in July 1241. His first posting was at Joten-ji in Hakata, in Chikuzen. That temple was attacked and burned by followers of the Tendai school, and it was with Kujo Michiie's support that Enni came up to Kyoto. In 1243 he was welcomed as Tofuku-ji's founding abbot, the first person to hold that seat. Here is something that often surprises visitors. Early Tofuku-ji was not a purely Zen institution. The temple's history records that Tendai, Shingon and Zen traditions were all present within these walls. Think of it as a young foundation still finding its identity, borrowing the depth of older schools while carrying a new practice home from the continent.

4. 04

   Gates, Bridges and a Valley Below

   In 東福寺 (Tofuku-ji), this section highlights Gates, Bridges and a Valley Below as a point to understand and notice during the visit.

   Start with the Sanmon, the great gate. It is a National Treasure, rebuilt in 1425 under Ashikaga Yoshimochi, the fourth shogun of the Muromachi shogunate. It is often described as the oldest and largest of Japan's Zen temple gates, and it is unusual because three architectural languages meet in a single structure: the Great Buddha style, the Zen style, and the Japanese style. Then there is the Tsutenkyo, the bridge you have almost certainly seen in photographs. It was built in 1380 by the monk Shun'oku Myoha, said to have been raised so that monks would no longer have to struggle across the valley on foot; in effect, the corridor leading from the Buddha hall to the Kaisan-do, the hall of the founding abbot, became a roofed bridge. It is the middle of three bridges spanning the Sengyokukan valley. The others are the Gaun-kyo, the westernmost of the three, and the Engetsu-kyo. Elsewhere in the grounds, look for the small red octagonal hall known as the Sansho-ji Aizen Hall, an Important Cultural Property. It was built in the early Muromachi period at Sansho-ji, north of here, and later moved to stand west of the Kaisan-do. Inside, above a tiled floor and a mirrored ceiling, a shrine shaped like a treasure stupa holds Aizen Myoo. The garden of the abbot's quarters, called the Eight Phases garden, is designated a national place of scenic beauty. And in its heyday, this complex is said to have held more than eighty tatchu, branch temples clustered around the main halls.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   In 東福寺 (Tofuku-ji), this section highlights Before You Head Off as a point to understand and notice during the visit.

   Late autumn is when Tofuku-ji fills with visitors, drawn by the maples above the valley and the view from the Tsutenkyo bridge. If you can, come early, and let your eyes drop from the canopy to the ravine below. That drop is the reason the bridge exists at all. One more image to carry with you. In 1798, lightning struck the Great Buddha hall of Hoko-ji, some two kilometers away. A Tofuku-ji monk named Inshu described the scene, and the record of his account, kept by Matsuura Kiyoshi, lord of the Hirado domain, notes that the burning was visible from these precincts, and that with Hoko-ji's colossal image destroyed, Tofuku-ji's own old principal image unexpectedly became the tallest statue in Kyoto. It is a strange and human footnote: a temple famous for its trees, remembered in one chronicle for a fire it could only watch. So take your time. Wander the lanes where the branch temples once stood, find the red octagonal hall, and listen for the valley. If you are here on the second Sunday of November, the Gosha Joju shrine within the grounds holds its festival for five deities, a reminder that this is not only a monument but a working place of worship. The neighborhood is served by the Tofuku-ji stations on the Japan Railways and Keihan lines, so the path onward is easy whenever you are ready.