Eastern Paradise of Yakushi Nyorai Joruri ji Temple
Joruriji Temple was founded by priest Gimyo. This is a Shingon Ritsu sect temple with icons of Amida-Nyorai and Yakushi-Nyorai. According to temple records, it was first founded in 1047 as Nishi Odawaraji Temple, and was designed to express the pure land Jodo that all nobles longed to be guided to in their afterlives. A Jodo-style garden is located around the pond, where beautiful views of flowers throughout the year can be seen as well as colored leaves in autumn. Most temple buildings were destroyed during the period of the northern and southern dynasties (1336-1392), but the main hall (built in 1107) and three-storied pagoda survived, designated as national treasures. The main hall holds nine seated wooden images of the Amida-nyorai-zazo Buddha (national treasure), giving the temple a second name Kutaiji (Temple of the Nine Images). Its bewitching secret statue, Kissho-ten image, which is believed to have been made in the 13th century and designated as an important cultural asset of Japan, is opened to the public only in January, spring, and autumn each year. The three-tiered pagoda rising above a dense forest as if piercing the sky, and the elegant scenery of Aji-ike Pond reflecting off the main hall, provide people of the modern age with a look at Fujiwara Culture.
The pond was dug in 1150 by priests from Kōfuku-ji. On either side of the pond are stone lanterns dating to 1366, which are classified as Important Cultural Properties by the Japanese government. Beginning in 1976 the garden was restored to its original form by the landscape architect Mori Osamu.
The garden of Joruri-ji, located in the town of Kamo near the ancient capital of Nara, is a Pure Land garden (jodoshiki) intended to evoke the Western Paradise of Amida Buddha. As a religious foundation, it dates back to the eleventh century, but the main hall is an early twelfth-century structure, and was moved to its present location in 1157 (its original location is unknown). It was at that time that the pond garden located to the east of the hall was constructed by a priest of nearby Kofuku-ji. Two decades later, a pagoda originally erected in Kyoto was moved to the steep hillside on the eastern shore of the pond. As reconstructed on the evidence of archaeological discoveries made in 1976, the pond contains an elongated island connected to the southern shore by a long stone bridge, and a prominent peninsula on the eastern shore. When it was excavated in 1976, the island and the peninsula were found to have pebbled shores, and the North end of the island contained a group of carefully placed rocks culminating in a tall standing stone that today seems to echo the pagoda on the eastern bank. Unfortunately the island and the shores of the pond have been overcome by tall grasses and weeds in the quarter century following the restoration of the site, this growth concealing much of the stone work.
The orientation of the hall and garden--orientation in the literal sense of the term--is explained by the fact that this is an Amida temple. Thus the main hall, famous for its nine statues of the Amida Buddha, represents the Western Paradise, or Pure Land, of Amida Buddhism, and is appropriately located on the western side of the pond. The combination of an Amida Hall and a pond garden is a rare extant example of an arrangement that was apparently commonplace in the Heian Period (the Byodo-in at Uji is the only other extant example dating in the twelfth century). It is worth noting that as the sun sets behind the ridge located to the west of the main hall, casting the temple and the pond garden into shadow, the elevated pagoda remains dramatically illuminated, suggesting to some, the Eastern Paradise of Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of healing. Joruri is the Japanese name for the Eastern Paradise, and the original dedication of the temple was to Yakushi, whose image is stored in the pagoda. This east-west emphasis has led some to see the island in the middle of the pond as representing the terrestrial world bracketed by two heavens.