Kurodani Konkai Komyoji Temple is the head temple of the Jodo sect of Buddhism.
In 1175, St. Honen, founder of the Jodo sect, who descended from the Kurodani area of Mount Hiei and established a hermitage here. This was the origin of the Jodo sect’s first temple. The temple overlooks the Nishiyama mountain range as well as the Kyoto Imperial Palace and Mt. Ogura, which lie 2km and 10 km to the west respectively. Today it still has 18 sub-temples, including the Main Gate, Amida Hall, and Main Hall. In the mid-nineteenth century, the temple also served as the headquarters for 1,000 members of the Aizu Clan, who served as Kyoto’s guardians, and as the birthplace of the Shinsengumi, a specially selected samurai corps appointed to protect the Tokugawa bakufu during a time of national upheaval.

Here at Konkai Komyoji Temple, we have been preserving and nurturing fujibakama (fragrant eupatorium), one of “Kyoto’s Critically Endangered Species*,” and a plant that has been cherished by the Japanese people since the Heian period (794-1192). Fujibakama is one of Japan’s seven autumnal flowers, a pretty flower with small pale reddish-purple blossoms at its branch tips. It has a fresh sweet fragrance like cherry blossom cakes, and Heian aristocrats used to wear its fragrant bags to cover themselves with their scent.

In this tour, a monk from Konkai Komyoji Temple and a garden guide from Ueyakato Landscape, the temple’s garden management company, will guide you to the temple’s south-facing courtyard garden where Shinsengumi members used to hold swordsmanship tournaments and another garden not usually open to the public. While watching the fujibakama flowers swaying in the wind in the tranquil garden, visitors will hear a talk about fujibakama given by a member of the Genji Fujibakama Association, which is active in conservation activities, and enjoy the smell of the fujibakama leaves.

The path from Mt. Hiei to Kurodani Konkai Komyoji Temple was taken by St. Honen during the Heian period (794-1185).
Today, the Asagimadara butterfly (known in Japanese as the “traveling butterfly”) still comes down from Mt. Hiei to gather fujibakama nectar. If you are lucky, you may also have a chance to encounter this graceful flying butterfly.
Please come and enjoy Konkai Komyoji Temple where you can only see and meet these creatures during this short season.
*We have cultivated herbaceous cuttings received from the Genji Fujibakama Society, which preserves and cultivates fujibakama native to Kyoto (an ancient species of fujibakama from Kyoto’s Ohara region, a species considered to be critically endangered in Kyoto).