Saion-ji Temple, Jōdo-shū temple in Kamigyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan

Saion-ji is a Jōdo-shū temple in Kamigyō-ku, entered through a wide dark-timber gate with a tiled roof, a white round lamp hanging under the central beam and a vertical plaque on the right pillar. Lower tiled wooden walls extend to either side, and a stone-paved path leads through the opening. Its main image is a seated Amida Buddha, 227.5 cm tall, made of joined wood in the Kamakura period.

Saionji Kintsune founded the temple in 1224 as a Shingon temple at his Kitayama villa, on the site of today's Rokuon-ji. The family's fortunes faded with the Kamakura shogunate, and in the Muromachi period the temple moved to Muromachi; Ashikaga Yoshimitsu then built his Kitayama residence on the old site. In 1554 Enyo revived it as a Jodo sect temple, and in 1590 it was moved to its present location.

The temple's name comes from the Saionji family, whose founder Kintsune built it in 1224; the family was court nobility (kuge), not samurai. The temple was converted to the Jodo sect in 1554 by Enyo, and its main image is an Amida Buddha. The mountain name is Hojusan and the cloister name Chikurin-in; it is the fourteenth of the forty-eight vow temples of Kyoto.

Saion-ji stands at 362 Kōtoku-ji-chō, on Teramachi-dōri just below Kuramaguchi-dōri in Kamigyō-ku, a short walk from the Kuramaguchi subway stop. The grounds are entered through the dark timber gate with its tiled roof and white hanging lamp; a stone-paved path runs through the opening. Look for the vertical plaque on the right pillar and the small white sign post at the front edge.

The Saionji were court nobles (kuge), not samurai: Kintsune founded the temple in 1224 as a Shingon site on his Kitayama estate, where Kinkaku-ji now stands. The main image, a 227.5 cm joined-wood Amida Buddha of the Kamakura period, is said to have stood in Kintsune's Kitayama hall. The family declined when the Kamakura shogunate fell.