音樂寺, Buddhist temple in Kōnan, Japan
Ongaku-ji is a Jōdo-shū Seizan-ha temple in the Murikuno-chō Teramachi district of Konan, Aichi Prefecture. Its main image is a seated wooden Yakushi Nyorai, and the grounds hold 15 varieties of hydrangea, 1,200 plants in all, along with a white-walled earthen storehouse that serves as the Murikuno Ward history museum, "Kunikuni no Sato."
According to temple tradition, the priest Gen'ei founded it in 1184 as Daijō-in, and it was renamed Ongaku-ji in 1319. It is linked to Murakuni no Oyori, a figure of the Asuka period rewarded for service in the Jinshin War; Nara- and early Heian-period roof tiles and fūshō ornaments found nearby support an earlier temple on the site. The sixth abbot Eiyo renamed it Kinsei-zan in 1689, and the twenty-first abbot Kidō changed the mountain name to Kinsei-zan (琴聲山) in the Taishō era.
The temple is nicknamed Ajisaidera, the hydrangea temple, for the 1,200 plants of 15 varieties in its grounds. Each June it holds the Ajisai Matsuri, when the precinct is open for viewing the flowers. The name Ongaku-ji, "music temple", dates from the 1319 renaming of the earlier Daijō-in.
From Meitetsu Konan Station on the Inuyama Line, take the Meitetsu bus bound for Konan Kosei Hospital and get off at the Ongaku-ji bus stop; the temple is a one-minute walk from there. The grounds are explored on foot, and the 16 Senkō-butsu images are kept in the Murakuno Community History Museum "Murakuni no Sato", a white-walled storehouse inside the precinct.
The temple's 16 Enkū sculptures, including a Yakushi Buddha and eleven Twelve Heavenly Generals, were carved around 1676 when the monk Enkū stopped here. Dendrochronology dates their hinoki wood to a tree felled in 1671. They are kept in the white-walled storehouse museum, the Murakuno Ward History Museum "Murakuni no Sato", together with the wooden Yakushi Buddha and a sword from the Atsuta shrine.
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