Attraction
Hokke-ji grew from a residence associated with Fujiwara no Fuhito and the household of his daughter, Empress Kōmyō. Kōmyō converted the empress's establishment into a temple formally called Hokke Metsuzai-no-tera, which came to serve as the head institution for the provincial nunneries established within Shōmu's state Buddhist order. Its identity should not be reduced to a female annex of Tōdai-ji. The temple created a setting for nuns' study, ordination, ritual, and imperial patronage, and later restorers repeatedly renewed that women's institution. The enormous Nara-period arrangement of halls, towers, refectory, and lecture spaces no longer stands, so present-day scale cannot measure its original authority.
