Meiyuin, Buddhist temple in Ōtsu, Japan

Meiyuin, formally Adozan Kassanji Sokushō Myōōin, is a Tendai temple in the Katsuragawa valley of Ōtsu. Its main hall, rebuilt in 1715, has a hip-and-gable roof thatched with thick tochibuki boards, a technique otherwise reserved for major Enryaku-ji buildings. The hall faces south but opens only on the west, and its precinct, with stone walls and steps, retains the layout shown in medieval maps.

Founded in 859 by Sōō Kashō, a disciple of Ennin, Meiyuin began as a mountain retreat where, according to the temple's origin story, Sōō carved a thousand-armed Kannon from a sacred katsura tree. By the late Heian period it was a well-known center for mountain ascetic practice, and its main hall, rebuilt in 1715, incorporates timbers felled around 1100. From the 13th century it clashed repeatedly with neighboring Ikadachi over forest rights.

The temple is also called Katsurakawa Myōō-in, after the Katsura River valley, and its full name is Adosan Katsurakawa-ji Sokushō Myōō-in. The summer retreat (geango) is held from 16 to 20 July, when hundred-day and thousand-day circumambulation ascetics fast and train under waterfalls. On the night of 18 July they perform the Taiko-mawashi, leaping onto and off a large drum, recalling Sōō's plunge into the waterfall pool.

Meiyuin lies in the Katsurakawa valley at the northern edge of Ōtsu, about 45 minutes by bus from JR Katada Station; the Enkō bus runs only on weekends and holidays, once a day. By car, take National Route 367 north from central Ōtsu or Kyoto. The main hall stands up a stone stairway above the Goma-dō, on ground terraced with stone walls.

The temple keeps 501 wooden sankō-fuda pilgrimage tablets, the oldest from 1204, a 391 cm plank offered by seven monks. Among them are tablets left by shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and Ashikaga Yoshimasa and by Hino Tomiko. No other temple preserves so many.