Ginkaku-ji

Quick facts

Address

2 Ginkakujicho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto

Spiritual entities

Avalokiteśvara (Kannon · Gwaneum, 観音菩薩)

About this place

Ginkaku-ji, properly Jisho-ji, stands in Sakyo, Kyoto. It began as Higashiyama-dono, the mountain villa built by Ashikaga Yoshimasa, eighth shogun of the Muromachi shogunate. After his death it became a Rinzai temple and was named Jisho-ji after his posthumous title. In 1486 the Togudo was built as his private devotional hall. In the third month of 1489 the frame of the Ginkaku — properly the Kannon Hall — was raised, but that October Yoshimasa fell ill, and on the seventh day of the first month of the following year he died without seeing it completed.

Origin and history

Ginkaku-ji began as Higashiyama-dono, the mountain villa built by Ashikaga Yoshimasa, eighth shogun of the Muromachi shogunate. After his death it became a Rinzai temple and was named Jisho-ji after his posthumous title, Jisho-in.

When the Zen room Saishian was finished in 1485, Yoshimasa took the tonsure and the religious name Kizan Dokei. The following year, 1486, the Togudo was built as his own devotional hall.

In the third month of 1489 the frame of the Ginkaku — properly the Kannon Hall — was raised. That October Yoshimasa fell ill, and on the seventh day of the first month of the next year he died without seeing the pavilion completed.

What it is locally associated with

• Origin

  Without seeing it completed

  The pavilion’s frame was raised in the third month of 1489; Yoshimasa fell ill that October and died the following January.

  documented history

• Origin

  From villa to temple

  After Yoshimasa’s death it became a Rinzai temple, named Jisho-ji after his posthumous title.

  documented history

• Power spot

  The Togudo

  In 1486 the Togudo was built as Yoshimasa’s own devotional hall.

  documented history

The quietest fact about this temple sits in a row of dates. The pavilion’s frame went up in the third month of 1489; that October Yoshimasa fell ill; on the seventh of the first month following, he died. He never saw it finished.

Before that he had been moving in one direction. When the Zen room was completed in 1485 he took the tonsure; the next year he built the Togudo as his own devotional hall. The villa was becoming, room by room, a place of practice rather than a residence.

It became a temple after he died, and took its name from his posthumous title — the same as at Kinkaku-ji, where the builder’s religious name also became the temple’s.

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Sources

1. 銀閣寺について — 臨済宗相国寺派 — Shokoku-ji (accessed 2026-08-13)