is a Buddhist temple

Buddhist temples in Japan

Along with Shinto shrines, Buddhist temples are the most numerous, famous, and important religious buildings in Japan.The term "Shinto shrine" is used in opposition to "Buddhist temple" to mirror in English the distinction made in Japanese between Shinto and Buddhist religious structures. In...

 located in the city of Tateyama

Tateyama, Chiba

is a city located in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. As of September 2010, the city had an estimated population of 49,315 and the population density of 447 persons per km². The total area was 110.21 km²...

 in southern Chiba Prefecture

Chiba Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region and the Greater Tokyo Area. Its capital is Chiba City.- History :Chiba Prefecture was established on June 15, 1873 with the merger of Kisarazu Prefecture and Inba Prefecture...

, Japan. The temple is also called "Nago-ji" using the alternate pronunciation of the final Chinese character

Kanji

Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

 in its name, or the "Nago Kannon", after its primary object of worship.

History

According to temple legend, Nago-dera was founded by the wandering holy ascetic Gyōki

Gyoki

was a Japanese Buddhist priest of the Nara period, born in Ōtori county, Kawachi Province , to family of Korean Baekje descent. Gyōki became a monk at Asuka-dera temple in Nara at the age of 15, and studied under master Dōshō as one of his first pupils. Gyōki studied Yogacara , a core doctrine of...

 around 717 AD to pray for the recovery of Empress Genshō

Empress Gensho

was the 44th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession.Genshō's reign spanned the years 715 through 724.In the history of Japan, Genshō was the fifth of eight women to take on the role of empress regnant. The four female monarchs before Genshō were: Suiko, Kōgyoku/Saimei,...

 from an illness. However, no historical documents have survived to substantiate this legend, and the history of the temple is thus uncertain. Most of the temple was destroyed by a fire in 1703, and its oldest existing structures are its Hondō

Main Hall (Japanese Buddhism)

Main hall is the term used in English for the building within a Japanese Buddhist temple compound which enshrines the main object of veneration. Because the various denominations deliberately use different terms, this single English term translates several Japanese words, among them Butsuden,...

 (1759) and Tahōtō

Tahōtō

A is a form of Japanese pagoda found primarily at Esoteric Shingon and Tendai school Buddhist temples. It is unique among pagodas because it has an even number of stories...

pagoda (1761), both of which are registered as Chiba Prefectural Important Cultural Properties.

The temple currently belongs to the Shingon Chizan Sect

Shingon-shū Chizan-ha

or Chizan is a Japanese grouping of Shingon Buddhism. Among the other groupings of Shingon Buddhism is Buzan-ha. It is headquartered in Chishaku-in Temple in Kyoto. Naritasan Shinshōji Temple in Narita is also an important temple and has been founded in 940. Chizan-ha belongs to Tantric Buddhism....

 of Japanese Buddhism, and its Gohonzon

Gohonzon

Gohonzon , is the object of devotion in many forms of Japanese Buddhism. In Japanese, go is an honorific prefix indicating respect and honzon means object of fundamental respect, veneration, or devotion...

is a bronze Senju Kannon Bosatsu dating from the Kamakura period

Kamakura period

The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura Shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo....

. This image is a national Important Cultural Property

Important Cultural Properties of Japan

The term is often shortened into just are items officially already classified as Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan by the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs and judged to be of particular importance to the Japanese people....

.

Nago-dera is the 33rd and last in the Bandō Sanjūsankasho

Bando Sanjusankasho

The is a series of 33 Buddhist temples in Eastern Japan sacred to Goddess Kannon. Bandō is the old name for what is now the Kantō region, used in this case because the temples are all in the Prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama, Tokyo, Gunma, Ibaraki, Tochigi and Chiba...

, a pilgrimage circuit of 33 Buddhist temples in the Kantō region

Kanto region

The is a geographical area of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. The region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba, and Kanagawa. Within its boundaries, slightly more than 40 percent of the land area is the Kantō Plain....

 of eastern Japan dedicated to the Bodhisattva

Bodhisattva

In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is either an enlightened existence or an enlightenment-being or, given the variant Sanskrit spelling satva rather than sattva, "heroic-minded one for enlightenment ." The Pali term has sometimes been translated as "wisdom-being," although in modern publications, and...

 Kannon.

Sources

• Chibaken No Rekishi Sanpo (千葉県の歴史散歩: "Walking Chiba Prefecture's History"), Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1994. (Japanese)
• Entry on the Bandō Sanjūsankasho site