Daigo-ji

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The five-story pagoda is a national treasure of Japan.

Daigo-ji (醍醐寺) is a Shingon Buddhist temple in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto, Japan. The main image (honzon) is Yakushi. Rigen-daishi (Shōbō) founded the temple in 874.

Enchō 8, 22nd day of the 9th month (930): Emperor Daigo fell ill and then abdicated.^[1]
Enchō 8, 29th day of the 9th month (930): Emperor Daigo entered the Buddhist priesthood in the very early morning hours. As a monk, he took the Buddhist name Hō-kongō; and shortly thereafter, this humble monk died at the age of 46.^[2] This monk was buried in the precincts of Daigo-ji, which is why the former-emperor's posthumous name became Daigo-tennō.^[3]

More than seven centuries after its founding in 874, Toyotomi Hideyoshi held a famous cherry-blossom party there.

Autumn colour from Acer palmatum (momiji) at Daigo-ji

[edit] National treasures

Several structures, including the kondō and the five-story pagoda, are National treasures of Japan.

Daigo-ji possesses 18 specifically-designated national treasures, including the buildings and other works as well; and the temple holds several dozen important cultural assets.

Daigo-ji is part of the "Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto" World Heritage Site.

The five-story pagoda at Daigoji temple was built in 951 and is the oldest building in Kyoto. It was one of few buildings to survive the Onin War in the 1400s.

[edit] References

^ Brown, Delmer et al. (1979). Gukanshō, p. 293.
^ Titsingh, Issac. (1834). Annales des empereurs du Japon, p. 134; Brown, p. 292.
^ Titsingh, p. 134.

Brown, Delmer and Ichiro Ishida, eds. (1979). [ Jien, 1221], Gukanshō; "The Future and the Past: a translation and study of the 'Gukanshō,' an interpretive history of Japan written in 1219" translated from the Japanese and edited by Delmer M. Brown & Ichirō Ishida. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-03460-0
Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). [Siyun-sai Rin-siyo/Hayashi Gahō, 1652]. Nipon o daï itsi ran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon. Paris: Oriental Translation Society of Great Britain and Ireland.-- Click for digitized, full-text copy of this book (in French).
Varley, H. Paul , ed. (1980). [ Kitabatake Chikafusa, 1359], Jinnō Shōtōki ("A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns: Jinnō Shōtōki of Kitabatake Chikafusa" translated by H. Paul Varley). New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-04940-4