Founder’s Hall 御影堂：内部

Official explanation

The interior of the hall is divided into the gejin, a worship area where visitors sit on tatami mats, and the naijin, the inner sanctum. This gejin is significantly more spacious than the naijin, which is unusual for a Buddhist hall. This design was chosen to accommodate as many worshipers as possible, especially on ceremonial occasions when devotees from throughout the country gather at the temple. A total of 90 giant pillars support the hall, both within the gejin and around the perimeter.

Scrolls with paintings of the temple’s former head priests hang on both sides of the central altar on the back wall of the naijin. Further to the sides hang two scrolls describing the virtues and radiance of Amida Buddha, the central deity in Jodo Shinshu. Both ends of the wall are decorated with paintings of lotus flowers and other Buddhist motifs by Kyoto-based artists, including Kono Bairei (1844–1895) and Mochizuki Gyokusen (1834–1913).

出典: 地域観光資源の多言語解説文データベース（観光庁） — www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db. この英語解説文は観光庁の地域観光資源の多言語解説整備支援事業で作成しました。
Source: Japan Tourism Agency, Multilingual Explanation Database. This English text was produced by the Japan Tourism Agency's multilingual explanation project and is shown unedited. Opening hours and services may have changed since it was written.