is a Shingon temple

Buddhist temples in Japan

Along with Shinto shrines, Buddhist temples are the most numerous, famous, and important religious buildings in Japan.The term "Shinto shrine" is used in opposition to "Buddhist temple" to mirror in English the distinction made in Japanese between Shinto and Buddhist religious structures. In...

 in Matsuyama

Matsuyama, Ehime

is the capital city of Ehime Prefecture on the Shikoku island of Japan. It is located on the northeastern portion of the Dōgo Plain. Its name means "pine mountain." The city was founded on December 15, 1889....

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. It is Temple 49 on the Shikoku 88 temple pilgrimage

Shikoku Pilgrimage

The or is a multi-site pilgrimage of 88 temples associated with the Buddhist monk Kūkai on the island of Shikoku, Japan. A popular and distinctive feature of the island's cultural landscape, and with a long history, large numbers of pilgrims still undertake the journey for a variety of ascetic,...

.

History

Said to have been founded by Gyōki

Gyoki

was a Japanese Buddhist priest of the Nara period, born in Ōtori county, Kawachi Province , to family of Korean Baekje descent. Gyōki became a monk at Asuka-dera temple in Nara at the age of 15, and studied under master Dōshō as one of his first pupils. Gyōki studied Yogacara , a core doctrine of...

, Kūya

Kūya

Kūya was an itinerant Japanese priest who, along with Genshin and Jakushin, was an early promoter of the practice of the nembutsu amongst the common people in order to attain salvation and entry into the Pure land of Amida...

 lodged at the temple for three years. Burned during fighting in 1416, it was rebuilt by the Kōno clan. Sixteenth-century graffiti indicates that by that time Tendai

Tendai

is a Japanese school of Mahayana Buddhism, a descendant of the Chinese Tiantai or Lotus Sutra school.Chappell frames the relevance of Tendai for a universal Buddhism:- History :...

 priests and members of the peasantry had joined the ranks of pilgrims.

Buildings

• Hondō
  Main Hall (Japanese Buddhism)
  Main hall is the term used in English for the building within a Japanese Buddhist temple compound which enshrines the main object of veneration. Because the various denominations deliberately use different terms, this single English term translates several Japanese words, among them Butsuden,...
  
   (1482), an Important Cultural Property
  Important Cultural Properties of Japan
  The term is often shortened into just are items officially already classified as Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan by the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs and judged to be of particular importance to the Japanese people....
  
  .

See also

• Shikoku 88 temple pilgrimage
  Shikoku Pilgrimage
  The or is a multi-site pilgrimage of 88 temples associated with the Buddhist monk Kūkai on the island of Shikoku, Japan. A popular and distinctive feature of the island's cultural landscape, and with a long history, large numbers of pilgrims still undertake the journey for a variety of ascetic,...