Kurashiki · JP

Hofukutera

Hofukutera (寶福寺) is a quiet Koyasan Shingon temple set amid the rice paddies of Shimosho, a rural district of Kurashiki in Okayama Prefecture. Its name was born from a merger — in 1889 two older temples, Hōshōji and Reifukuji, combined their lineage and took one character each to form "Hōfukuji." Both parent houses trace their founding to the legendary Nara-period monk Hōgan Daishi in 754, making the spiritual heritage here well over twelve centuries old. Today the temple serves as the sixth stop on the Nakabeni Shikoku pilgrimage circuit and the thirtieth of the Saigoku thirty-temple route, drawing pilgrims who come to worship its principal image, a Yakushi Nyorai (Medicine Buddha) carved roughly four hundred years ago. The neat grounds feature a main hall, residential quarters, and a mountain gate and bell tower newly completed in 1993, all framed by open farmland.