Gyokusen-ji

Gyokusen-ji 玉泉寺
Gyokusen-ji in Shimoda
Basic information
Location	Kakizaki 31-6, Shimoda-shi, Shizuoka
Affiliation	Sōtō Zen
Deity	Shaka Nyorai
Country	Japan
Website	http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~gyokusen/
Completed	Tenshō period (1573–1592)

Gyokusen-ji (玉泉寺^?) is a small Buddhist temple in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. It is noteworthy in that it served as the first American consulate in Japan.

The exact date of the foundation of Gyokusen-ji is uncertain, but temple records indicate that it was originally a Shingon sect hermitage converted to the Sōtō Zen sect in the Tenshō period (1573–1592).

The current Hondō was built in 1848, but soon after its completion it was commandeered by the Tokugawa shogunate for use as a residence for foreign visitors to Shimoda during negotiations to end Japan’s national isolation policy. It hosted officers from American Commodore Matthew Perry’s flotilla of Black Ships, and Japanese authorities allowed the bodies of dead American sailors to be buried in its graveyard. Soon afterwards, it became the residence for a delegation of Russians under Vice-Admiral Euphimy Vasil'evich Putiatin, who was trapped in Shimoda at the end of 1854 when a tsunami caused by the Ansei-Tōkai earthquake destroyed his fleet. The temple was used during the second and third series of negotiations between the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, and the Russian Empire, which resulted in the Treaty of Shimoda of 1855.