Rokkakudo

Quick facts

Address

248 Donomaecho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto

Spiritual entities

Avalokiteśvara (Kannon · Gwaneum, 観音菩薩)

About this place

Rokkakudo, properly Shiunzan Chohoji, stands in Nakagyo, Kyoto. It is said to have been founded by Prince Shotoku, and its principal image, a Nyoirin Kannon, has long drawn devotion. The temple states that Rokkakudo, where the head of the Ikenobo school of flower arranging serves as abbot, is the birthplace of ikebana. Arising from flowers offered before the Buddha, ikebana took form in the Muromachi period and became an important element of Japanese culture.

Origin and history

Rokkakudo is said to have been founded by Prince Shotoku. Its principal image is a Nyoirin Kannon, which has long drawn devotion.

The temple states that Rokkakudo, where the head of the Ikenobo school serves as abbot, is the birthplace of ikebana. Arising from flowers offered before the Buddha, ikebana took form in the Muromachi period and became an important element of Japanese culture.

What it is locally associated with

• Power spotSkill & Mastery

  The birthplace of ikebana

  The temple states that Rokkakudo, where the head of the Ikenobo school serves as abbot, is the birthplace of ikebana.

  documented history

• Origin

  From flowers offered before the Buddha

  Arising from offered flowers, ikebana took form in the Muromachi period and became an important element of Japanese culture.

  documented history

• Origin

  Said to be founded by Prince Shotoku

  The temple is said to have been founded by Prince Shotoku; its Nyoirin Kannon has long drawn devotion.

  folk tradition

The link between this temple and an art is still carried in a job title. The head of the Ikenobo school of flower arranging is the temple’s abbot — the head of the house that transmits the craft is also the priest in charge.

Ikebana began with flowers offered before the Buddha. That, the temple records, took form in the Muromachi period and became an important element of Japanese culture. The order is preserved here: the art came out of the gesture of devotion.

The principal image is a Nyoirin Kannon. The six-sided hall stands on a tight plot in the middle of town, with modern Kyoto around it.

Related guides

• How to visit a shrine or temple in JapanThe country-wide basics: purifying at the water basin, the two-bows-two-claps-one-bow form at shrines, and what temples do instead.
• What a "power spot" actually isA modern Japanese coinage, not a traditional religious category. Where the word came from, what it does and does not claim, and why this site uses it anyway.
• Shrine or temple?A shrine is Shinto and a temple is Buddhist, and you can usually tell at the gate. Why the line is cleaner on paper than on the ground, and what a government order in 1868 has to do with it.
• Omamori, ema, omikuji and goshuinThe four things you are most likely to receive, write, draw or be given at a shrine or temple, what each is actually for, and the one of them people most often get wrong.

Sources

1. 六角堂 — 華道家元池坊 — Ikenobo (accessed 2026-08-13)