After the death of Oda Nobunaga, his successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi donated to the Buddhist sect Honganji a large parcel of land in Kyoto. Here, the sect established a large temple, but only a decade later the sect split and one of the factions received from the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu another parcel, located east of the first temple.

Hence, they became known as Higashi Honganji, the Eastern temple (Higashi means “East", while the first temple became known as Nishi ("West") Honganji…

Main Gate, Nishi Hongan-ji, Kyoto

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Yesterday’s Japan Photo: Old Japanese stories, Ishikawa Goemon