Sōji-ji
Sōji-ji (總持寺) is one of two main temples of the Sōtō school of Japanese Zen, located in the port city of Yokohama Japan. The other main Sōtō temple is Eihei-ji in Fukui Prefecture.
This temple or monastery was originally established on the Noto peninsula (present-day Ishikawa prefecture) in 740 as Morookadera by the monk Gyōgi (668–749), who also founded Tōdai-ji. In 1321, Keizan Jōkin (1268–1325), the founding patriarch of the Sōtō Zen institution, came into possession of this local monastery, which he renamed Sōji-ji.[1]
"In 1322, Sōji-ji were sanctioned as an official monastery by Emperor Godaigo (r. 1318–1339), an event that is traditionally considered to mark the official establishment of Sōtō as an independent Zen institution in Japan."[1]
Further reading
Sōji-ji, Wikipedia
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Robert E. Buswell Jr., Donald S. Lopez Jr., The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (Princeton: 2014), s.v. Sōjiji