Hōrin-ji Temple, Buddhist temple in Ikaruga, Japan
Hōrin-ji is a Buddhist temple in Ikaruga featuring a three-story pagoda, a lecture hall, and a dedicated space housing eleven Buddhist statues. The complex arranges its buildings in a traditional layout centered around these main structures.
Founded around 622, according to one tradition, by Prince Yamashiro no Oe, son of Prince Shōtoku, to pray for his father's recovery from illness; another tradition credits three men from Baekje. Excavations show the temple existed by the mid-7th century. After a fire in 1367 and a typhoon in 1645, only the three-story pagoda remained. The pagoda burned down in 1944 after lightning struck it, as its lightning rod had been removed during the war, and was rebuilt in 1975.
The temple centers on Myoken Bosatsu, a Buddhist deity connected to the northern sky in Japanese religious tradition. Visitors experience this spiritual focus through the ritual spaces and sculptural displays that define how the site is used today.
The temple grounds are open during daylight hours from March through November. The layout features flat terrain and wide pathways, making it easy to move between the different buildings and spaces.
The pagoda burned down on 21 July 1944 after lightning struck it, because its lightning rod had been removed under the wartime metal collection order. The 1975 reconstruction by master carpenter Nishioka Tsunekazu was funded partly through efforts by the writer Kōda Aya, and it enshrines the original reliquary saved from the fire.
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