Horyu-ji Yumedono Legend

The Horyu-ji Yumedono legend records that the Nara monk Gyoshin built the Yumedono on the former site of the Ikaruga Palace in honour of Prince Shotoku (Umayado-no-Oji). The Yumedono is an octagonal hall built in 739, enshrining a Guze Kannon image said to be at the prince's exact height. The image was long kept as a hibutsu (secret image) wrapped in white cloth, and tradition holds that it was first revealed in 1884 by Ernest Fenollosa and Okakura Tenshin. The structure has three main events: the death of Prince Shotoku (622) and devotion to Ikaruga; the building of the Yumedono by Gyoshin Sozu; and the secret-image status of the Guze Kannon and its modern revelation. The Yumedono stands at the heart of Shotoku Taishi devotion and connects to the medieval Prince Shotoku biographies, including the Shotoku Taishi Denryaku and Jogu Shotoku Hoo Teisetsu. The site is the Yumedono in the eastern precinct of Horyu-ji in Horyu-ji, Ikaruga-cho, Ikoma-gun (Nara). Horyu-ji is divided into the western precinct (Kondo, five-storey pagoda, Chumon and other halls) and the eastern precinct (Yumedono, Denpodo and other halls); the Yumedono is the central structure of the eastern precinct. The western precinct was founded in 607 under Empress Suiko and is part of the world's oldest extant wooden architecture, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list. With the adjacent Chugu-ji, Horin-ji and Hokki-ji it forms the Shotoku-related temple group of Ikaruga, including the 'three pagodas of Ikaruga.' Documentary sources include the Suiko section of the Nihon Shoki on Prince Shotoku's deeds, the Horyu-ji Toin Engi (747), the Jogu Shotoku Hoo Teisetsu (early Heian) and the Shotoku Taishi Denryaku (mid-Heian). Fenollosa's Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art and Okakura Tenshin's related writings preserve the modern transition; further documentation appears in the temple records, Nara Prefecture and Ikaruga town cultural-property materials and World Heritage records.