AT A GLANCE
Why go?
High on a hillside above the Aizu plain, Hōyō-ji (法用寺) is one of the oldest Buddhist temples in the region and the only place in Aizu still crowned by a three-story pagoda. Founded, by tradition, in 720 by the monk Tokudō—later famed for opening up Nikkō—the temple is the 29th stop on the Japan Heritage pilgrimage of the Aizu Thirty-Three Kannon, and its hidden Eleven-Faced Kannon is known affectionately as the Suzumebayashi Kannon.↗↗↗
What makes a visit rewarding is the concentration of genuine antiquity in a quiet rural setting: Heian-period wooden guardian-kings designated National Important Cultural Properties, an elegant 1780 pagoda, a rare double-petaled 'tiger's-tail' cherry tree, and a poem stone raised by the celebrated tanka writer Ishikawa Takuboku—all set against the same view that once let the monks gaze out over 'the Buddhist capital of Aizu.'↗↗
A thousand years above the Aizu plain
Hōyō-ji's story begins in the Nara period. The monk Tokudō is said to have founded it in 720, before going on to establish the sacred mountains of Nikkō; that pedigree alone makes Hōyō-ji a strong candidate for one of the two oldest temples in Aizu. The original hall burned in a fire in 807 along with its images, and the great preceptor Tokuchi (Tokūichi) rebuilt it the following year on the present site, a ridge where the temple could command a view across the plain that later earned Aizu its title as a 'Buddhist capital.' A dedicated Kannon hall was raised in 811.
