Yorimichi Converts the Uji Villa into Byōdōin

In 1052 Fujiwara no Yorimichi, then kanpaku to the emperor, converted the Uji villa inherited from his father Michinaga into Byōdōin. Michinaga had died decades earlier; this was Yorimichi’s use of an inherited property, rather than a new gift from a living father in 1052.

Some Buddhist chronologies identified 1052 as the opening of mappō, an age in which the teaching’s effective practice was believed to decline. Pure Land devotion offered hope of rebirth in Amida Buddha’s western paradise. Turning a residence into a temple put a family property at the service of worship and religious patronage in that setting.

The following year, 1053, the temple’s Amida Hall was dedicated with a central image made by the sculptor Jōchō. The hall, now called Phoenix Hall, placed an image of the Pure Land beside a pond at Uji. Its completion belongs to the next stage of the foundation: the conversion of 1052 and the celebrated building of 1053 were related but distinct actions. Later fires destroyed much of the wider complex, while repairs sustained the surviving hall and its images.