Fukuzen-ji

The view of Sensuijima from the Taichôrô

• Established: c. 950
• Japanese: 海岸山千手院福禅寺 (Kaiganzan Senjuin Fukuzenji)

Fukuzen-ji is a Shingon Buddhist temple in Tomonoura, Hiroshima prefecture, famous for its Taichôrô guest room, which hosted Korean embassies to Edo on a number of occasions.

The temple was founded in the Heian period, around 950.

In the Genroku era, around 1690, a guesthouse was constructed adjacent to, and attached to, the temple's hondô (main hall). The guestroom is in simple irimoya construction, with 11.8 meter beams, and a tiled roof.

Yi Bang-eon, a member of the 1711 Korean mission to Edo, famously declared the view of the Inland Sea from the guesthouse to be the greatest in Japan. A member of the 1747 mission, Hong Kyung Hae, later composed a piece of calligraphy naming the guesthouse "Taichôrô," or "Tower Facing the Tides."

References

• Plaques on-site.[1]