Jōmyō-ji (Kamakura)

Tōkasan Jōmyō Zenji
The Main Hall (Hon-dō)
Basic information
Location	8-31, Jōmyōji 3-chome, Kamakura, Kanagawa 248-0003
Affiliation	Rinzai, Kenchō-ji school
Deity	Shaka Nyorai
Country	Japan
Architectural description
Founder	Ashikaga Yoshikane
Completed	1188

Tōkasan Jōmyō Zenji (稲荷山浄妙寺^?) is a Zen Buddhist temple of the Rinzai sect, Kenchō-ji school, in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Jōmyō-ji is Number Five of the five temples known as Kamakura Gozan ("Kamakura's Five Mountains"), and the only one of the five not founded by a member of the Hōjō clan. Jōmyō-ji has instead, as nearby Zuisen-ji, deep ties with the Ashikaga clan, and was one of the family's funeral temples (bodaiji). For this reason the family's kamon, or crest, is ubiquitous on its premises. The first three characters of its full name mean "Inari mountain", presumably from the hill of the same name where it stands, in its turn named after an ancient Inari myth (see below). Jōmyō-ji has given its name to the surrounding area, the characters for which have been however deliberately changed from 浄妙寺 to 浄明寺.

Jōmyō-ji was founded in 1188 by priest Taikō Gyōyū 退耕行勇 (1163–1241) as a Mikkyō temple with the name Gokuraku-ji but, soon after the first Japanese Zen monastery, nearby Kenchō-ji, was founded in 1253, the temple's head priest Geppō Ryōnen changed its denomination to Rinzai and its name to the present one. The date when this happened isn't known exactly, but it's thought to lie between 1257 and 1288. Ashikaga Sadauji, father of future shogun Ashikaga Takauji, was Jōmyō-ji's sponsor and, with his help, it quickly grew in size and importance. (The temple's name actually derives from Jōmyōjiden, Sadauji's posthumous name.) We know for example that in 1323 fifty of Jōmyō-ji priests participated at a ceremony in memory of Hōjō Sadatoki and that at the time the temple was ranked tenth for importance in Kamakura. According to the Taiheiki, at the end of his life Ashikaga Tadayoshi was imprisoned and then poisoned here.