Tōzen-ji

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Tozen-ji photographed by Felix Beato in the 1860s.

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Gate of Tōzenji

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The historical site: Memorial of the first British legation.

Tōzen-ji (東禅寺) is a temple in Takanawa, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It belongs to the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism which has its headquarters at Myoshin-ji in Kyoto.

In 1610, Ryonan-zenji founded it at Akasaka and in 1636 it was relocated to its present location. The temple was located directly on the Tokaido Road to the sea, and for that reason it was named Kaijō Zenrin (literally, "the Zen forest above the sea"). The words were embazoned prominently on the Sanmon, or main gate, which disappeared long ago. In the Edo period, Tōzen-ji was considered the family temple of various clans, including the Date clan of Sendai, the Ikeda clan of Omi province, the Inaba clan of Usuki Domain in Bungo province, the Suwo of Shinshu, the Tamura of Ichinoseki, and the Mori clan of Saeki in Bungo.

British legation

In 1859, the first British legation in Japan was built in the precincts of the temple. In 1860, the native interpreter of Rutherford Alcock, Consul-General in Japan, was murdered at the gate of the legation, and in the following year the legation was stormed by a group of ronin from the fiefdom of Mito Han, whose attack was repulsed by Alcock and his staff. Even now, the sword cuts and bullet marks in the attack of the samurai of the Mito Han remain in the pillar of the Okushoin (the drawing room in the back) and the genkan. Rutherford Alcock, the first British Minister to Japan, recorded his impressions of Tōzen-ji in his book, The Capital of the Tycoon (1863).

See also

• Touzenji jiken 「東禅寺」

References

• Alcock, Rutherford. (1863). The Capital of Tycoon. London: Harper & Brothers.
• Cortazzi, Hugh. (2000). Collected Writings of Sir Hugh Cortazzi, Vol. II. London: Routledge. ISBN 1-873410-92-1