Chugu-ji

Walk east out of Horyu-ji's east precinct, past the octagonal Yumedono, and the gate of Chugu-ji is right in front of you. It is easy to give it five minutes on the way back to the station. Give it longer. There is really one thing to see here, and it is worth sitting in front of for a while.

The main hall holds a bodhisattva sitting on a stool with the left leg hanging down, the right foot resting on the left knee, and the fingertips of the right hand barely touching the cheek. It was carved from camphor wood in the Asuka period and is 132 cm tall. The temple calls it Nyoirin Kannon, but that name dates from the Heian period or later; scholars think it was made as a Miroku (Maitreya), and the National Treasure register simply calls it a half-seated bodhisattva. It was once painted. Now it is almost black, with a soft shine. The temple likes to quote art historians who put its smile next to the Sphinx and the Mona Lisa. I would rather compare it with the half-seated Miroku at Koryu-ji in Kyoto.

Beside it is a 1982 replica of the Tenjukoku Shucho. After Prince Shotoku died in 622, his widow had women of the court embroider the land where he had been reborn. Only fragments survive, they are the oldest embroidery in Japan, and the original is deposited at the Nara National Museum.

Chugu-ji was a nunnery from the start. Tradition says Shotoku turned his mother's palace into a temple. The first temple stood about 500 m east of here, where the site is now a park, and moved to this spot around the end of the sixteenth century; from the Edo period on, its abbesses came from the imperial family. The present main hall was designed by the architect Yoshida Isoya at the request of Princess Takamatsu and finished in 1968.

Entry is 600 yen. It opens 9:00 to 16:00 from 1 October to 20 March and 9:00 to 16:30 from 21 March to 30 September, with last entry 15 minutes before closing. In mid to late April yellow yamabuki flowers bloom around the hall. There is also a temple cat. The temple has no car park.