Nichiryuubuji, Buddhist temple in Seki, Japan.
Nichiryuubuji is a Shingon temple of the Koyasan branch on the slope of Mount Takasawa at 434 m in Shimonoho, Seki. Its main hall, built in 1670, has a stage-like kake-zukuri structure resembling Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto, and the grounds also hold a Kamakura-period tahoto and a thousand-trunk cypress grove.
According to temple tradition, the site began in the early 5th century when the local chieftain Ryōmen Sukuna defeated a dragon deity and built a small shrine on the mountain. The temple was restored in the Kamakura period under Hōjō Masako, and most of its halls burned during the Ōnin War, leaving only the tahōtō; the present buildings were rebuilt in the Edo period.
Locals call this temple Mino Shimizu because its architecture resembles Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto. This comparison shapes how the community views and relates to the site.
The temple stands on the slope of Mount Takasawa at 434 m, reached by car: about 20 minutes from central Seki on Route 58, or 10 minutes from the Tokai-Kanjo Expressway's Tomika-Seki interchange. Parking is by the temple; from there paths and steps lead up through the grounds.
The temple's most notable cypress features an intricate branching pattern that spreads several meters at its base. Locals refer to it as the cypress of thousand branches because of its densely layered limbs.
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