Kunzenji Main Hall (Important Cultural Property)

Kokuzenji Temple is located at the foot of Mt. Futaba, north of Hiroshima Station, and it is said that in the old days the coast was right in front of the temple gate. It was founded in 1340, during the early Nanboku-cho period, by Gyonin, who studied under Nichiren's disciple Nichizo, and so the temple was named Gyoninji at the time. Later, in 1656, during the early Edo period, the wife of the second feudal lord Asano Mitsuakira, Manhime (Jishoin), made the temple her family temple. Manhime was granted 200 koku of temple land and built the main hall, while Mitsuaki rebuilt the various buildings such as the kitchen, reception hall, and mountain gate, and the temple was renamed Jishozan Kokuzenji. At the time, political marriages were commonplace in order to establish the feudal domain system, and Manhime was no exception. This can be seen from the fact that her father was Maeda Toshitsune, the feudal lord of the Kaga domain with a fief of one million koku of rice, her mother was Tamahime, the second daughter of the second shogun Tokugawa Hidetada, her aunt was Princess Sen, the wife of Toyotomi Hideyori, and she was adopted by her uncle, the third shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu. The fact that Princess Mitsu chose Akatsukininji Temple as her family temple out of the many temples in Hiroshima seems to convey her longing for her mother and grandmother, considering that it was the same Nizo who founded Myojoji Temple in Kaga (Ishikawa Prefecture), the family temple of her mother and grandmother. The imposing main hall with its hipped roof and double roof is known to have been built in 1671 (the 11th year of the Kanbun era) based on the remaining building inscription. Except for the veranda, there are no joinery structures on either the upper or lower floors. At the back of the building, a Buddhist altar is attached, protruding outwards, and its roof is hipped and shikorobuki (a type of roofing technique in which the roof is divided into tiers), giving it a very distinctive appearance. In addition, a structure in which the exterior walls are plastered with earth to make them fireproof is called nurigome, and this technique has been adopted for the main hall, with its exterior walls painted white. This is used exclusively in castle architecture and storehouse architecture, and is almost never seen in temple and shrine architecture. Furthermore, the overall structure is rugged and sturdy, and the way in which the tile roofing on the porch and gables hangs down without a valley is also reminiscent of castle architecture. It is known that this architecture was constructed by the domain's castle carpenters, so it can be said that the main hall is a temple building built with castle architecture techniques. There are not many ancient remains of Nichiren sect main halls in Western Japan, but among them, the main hall of Kokuzenji Temple is large, imposing, and in a relatively good state of preservation, making it a very valuable building. Date of designation: December 9, 1993 Summary: 24.0m long, 14.0m long beams, two-story, hipped roof, karahafu-style veranda, one-bay veranda, protruding Buddhist altar at the back, 5.3m long, 9.8m long beams, single-story, hipped roof, real tile roof