Yomeiji Temple Tsuwano

 

Yomeiji is a large Soto Zen temple in Tsuwano with a  thatched main hall.

Located up a small mountain valley, the main gate was relocated from the castle town where it marked the boundary between the samurai district and the merchant district.

The temple was founded in 1420 by Yoshimi Yorihiro, the lord of Tsuwano castle.

The first priest was Getsuin Shosho, the grandson of Dogen, the founder of the Soto Sect.

Supported by succeeding clans of daimyo, the temple had at its peak 70 branch temples in the Iwami region and 200 monks in training.

Like many temples, Yeomeiji suffered from fires multiple times throughout its history. The current main hall dates to 1729.

In its most recent rethatching, the rear half of the roof has been replaced with metal.

During the Edo Period it was considered one of the two great Soto Temples in all of Japan.

It remained the family temple of the lords of Tsuwano Castle until the mid 19th century when Koremi Kamei changed his families, and the subjects of Tsuwanos, funerals from Buddhist to Shinto.

After entering under the bell tower one of the first thinsg you see is the great gyoban, a wooden fish struck like a drum to summon monks, especially for meals.

To the rear of the temple is a lovely garden. The temple is worth visiting just for this. I covered it earlier in this post.

The temple has a small, dark, treasure house museum, but more interesting are the painted screen and doors scattered around the spacious interior of the temple.

The previous post in this series exploring Tsuwano was on the Shointei Garden in the old town.