Seiryu-ji

• Japanese: 正龍寺 (seiryuu ji)

Seiryû-ji was a significant Buddhist temple in the port of Yamakawa, at the southern end of Satsuma province.

The temple was a major center of Satsunan school Neo-Confucianism in the port, and people at the temple, well-versed in Chinese language, played a significant role in the translation and drafting of trade documents.

The haibutsu kishaku (separation of Shinto and Buddhism) movement of the early Meiji period was particularly strongly executed in Satsuma han, and Seiryû-ji was one of many temples destroyed at that time, and not reestablished. A number of gravestones from the temple's cemetery were recovered, however, in excavations conducted in 1965, and were re-erected. These include at least one gravestone for a Ryukyuan official, Ufugushiku niya, dated 1615; memorial monuments have also been erected in recent years in honor of the Ryukyuans who died in the port over the centuries, and also of those who died in the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877.

References

• "Ibusuki shi Yamakawa o aruku" 指宿市山川を歩く, Momoto モモト 14 (April 2013), n.p.