Chūgū-ji Audio Guide

Chūgū Temple: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Chūgū Temple

   Welcome to Chūgū Temple, known in Japanese as 中宮寺, in the town of Ikaruga in Nara Prefecture. This is a temple with a quiet, gentle character, and it sits right beside the eastern precinct of Hōryūji, next to the famous Dream Hall. It belongs to the Shōtoku school of Buddhism, and its story is tied closely to Prince Shōtoku and his family. Here is what makes it special. Chūgū Temple is a nunnery, and for about 1,400 years it has kept its sacred flame alive. It is best known for a graceful national treasure, a bodhisattva seated in a half-lotus pose, and for a remarkable embroidery that is said to be the oldest surviving embroidery in Japan. If you are arriving from the great gate of Hōryūji, the walk is about eight minutes, so let your pace slow down. The next few stops will take you from a palace turned into a temple, to a lost original site just to the east, and finally to the royal women who ran this temple for centuries.

2. 02

   Chūgū Temple: A Palace Becomes a Nunnery

   The story begins in the Asuka period, with a royal household. The prefecture's cultural database says that Chūgū Temple began as the palace of Empress Anahobe no Hashihito, the mother of Prince Shōtoku. After she died, the prince turned the palace into a temple. Other accounts name either Prince Shōtoku or the empress herself as the founder, and the exact circumstances of the founding are not recorded in detail. What is clear is that the temple was founded in the early seventh century, around the same time as Hōryūji next door. Archaeologists believe the two temples were paired, with Hōryūji as the monks' temple and Chūgū Temple as the nuns' temple. Roof tiles made with the same mold as those from the early Wakakusa complex at Hōryūji were found at the old Chūgū site, and they are a physical sign of that close link. So when you stand in a precinct that feels so calm, remember that you are standing in a place that grew out of family devotion. A mother's palace, a son's temple, and a community of nuns have all been part of the story.

3. 03

   Chūgū Temple's Lost First Home

   Here is something many visitors do not realize. The Chūgū Temple you see today is not where it first stood. The original temple was about 500 meters to the east, and that location is now preserved as the Chūgū Temple Ruins, a national historic site in Ikaruga. Excavations there began in 1963, led by Ishida Mosaku. They uncovered the foundations of a golden hall and a pagoda, with the hall to the north and the pagoda to the south. That is the same arrangement used at Shitennōji in Osaka, which is why the layout is called the Shitennōji style. No traces of a lecture hall or cloister have been found. Later, the temple suffered fires. Accounts say that during the warring states period it burned and the community moved to a Hōryūji sub-temple on the present site. The prefecture's records place the move around the end of the sixteenth century, when a royal woman entered as abbess. If you want to picture the first temple, the nearby site and the local research facility in Ikaruga help bring the original grounds to life.

4. 04

   Chūgū Temple's Treasures and a Rediscovered Embroidery

   Now to the treasures. The main image of Chūgū Temple is the national treasure bodhisattva in a half-lotus pose. Tradition calls it Nyoirin Kannon, and it dates from the Asuka period. It is the temple's most famous image, and many visitors remember it as the figure with the gentle smile. The other great treasure is the Tenjukoku Mandala Embroidery. It is said to have been enshrined behind the main image of the lecture hall. Over time the temple declined, and by the Heian period only the main image and a few buildings remained. In the Kamakura period, a nun named Shinnyo, the daughter of a Kōfukuji scholar-monk named Shōen, revived the temple. On the twenty-sixth day of the second month of 1274, she found the lost embroidery in Hōryūji's Gōfūzō storehouse and brought it back to Chūgū Temple. She also had it repaired, had a replica made, and restored the pagoda and the golden hall. Today the embroidery is celebrated as the oldest surviving embroidery in Japan.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   In 1602, Chūgū Temple welcomed Jikakuin-no-miya as its first imperial abbess. From then on it was known as the nunnery Ikaruga Gosho, and women from the imperial family continued to lead it into the modern era. That long line is a good thing to keep in mind as you leave. Before you go, try three things. Notice how close the temple sits to the Dream Hall, and think about how one temple moved from a spot to the east to this peaceful corner. Then think about the paired relationship between this nunnery and Hōryūji. And if you have time, walk toward the old temple site and compare the open ground with the quiet interior you just left. Hōryūji, the ruins, and the Ikaruga tourist information center nearby all add more layers to the story. Chūgū Temple is the kind of place where one visit leaves a question for the next.