Honpo-ji

• Established: 1436
• Other Names: 叡冒山 (Eibô-san)
• Japanese: 本法寺 (Honpou-ji)

Honpô-ji is a Nichiren Buddhist temple in Kamigyô-ku, Kyoto, established in 1436 by Nisshin shônin and originally located at Higashi-no-tôin Ayanokôji.

The temple was burned down shortly afterwards, after Nisshin invited the displeasure and ire of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshinori, who had it destroyed. A new hondô was built in 1455 near Shijô-Takakura, on land granted by Emperor Go-Hanazono. The temple was moved in 1460 to Sanjô-Madenokôji, and again sometime around 1532-1555 to the site of what is today Seimei Shrine, near Ichijô-Modoribashi.

In 1587, Honpô-ji was one of many temples which were relocated as part of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's reconstruction and reorganization of the city. It was re-established at its current location at that time. The temple's tenth abbot, Nittsû shônin, was given 1000 koku of temple lands, and Hon'ami Kôji , swordsmith and father of artist Hon'ami Kôetsu (1558-1637), donated funds for the reconstruction of the temple's halls and grounds.

Honpô-ji thus became the family temple of the Hon'ami family, though Kôetsu himself is buried elsewhere, at Kôetsu-ji, a temple he founded in 1615. The abbot's quarters (hôjô) at Honpô-ji boasts a garden said to have been designed by Kôetsu, and the temple owns many paintings by Kôetsu and Hasegawa Tôhaku, among others.

It burned down almost completely in a great fire which ravaged the city in 1788, the storehouses alone surviving, but the temple was rebuilt, most or all of its structures today dating back to that time.

References

• "Honpô-ji" 本法寺. Digital Daijisen デジタル大辞泉. Shogakukan. Accessed via Kotobank.jp, 28 November 2011.
• Official plaques at site.[1]
• Official Honpô-ji Website.