Iteian

• Established: 1580
• Abolished: 1866
• Japanese: 以酊庵 (Iteian)

Iteian was a Buddhist temple in Fuchû castle-town (today, Izuhara Town) on the island of Tsushima. Established in 1580, the temple played a prominent role through the early modern period in providing Tsushima han with monk experts in reading and producing Classical Chinese documents for official communications with the Korean kingdom of Joseon. Iteian monks also regularly accompanied Korean embassies to Edo and played central roles in preparing for and effecting formal audiences (meetings), banquets, receptions, and other in-person interactions with Korean envoys.

In 1635, Sô Yoshinari, lord of Tsushima domain, asked the Tokugawa shogunate to arrange for expert monks to be sent to Tsushima to aid in foreign relations. Monks known as sekigakusô 碩学僧, who possessed special credentials from the shogunate, were then regularly dispatched from the Kyoto Five Mountains (Gozan) temples to serve in Tsushima for one-year stints.

The temple was later relocated in 1732 to a different site within the same castle-town, where it remained until its dissolution in 1866. The Zen temple Seizan-ji now stands on that site.

References

• Gallery labels, Tsushima no gaikô 1: Iteian 対馬の外交Ⅰ 以酊庵 special exhibit, Tsushima Museum (Izuhara, Tsushima Island, Nagasaki prefecture), Apr-Jun 2022.