Kojusan Fukuju-ji Buddhist temple in Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture, was built by Ogasawara Tadazane, the feudal lord of the Kokura domain, as his family temple.
Ogasawara Tadazane, who was appointed as a lord of the Kokura domain in 1665 after Hosokawa clan, established Kojusan Fukuju-ji in Kokura soon after his inauguration. He invited Sokuhi, who was a prominent Chinese disciple of Ingen. Ingen was a famous priest from China to introduce Obaku school of Zen Buddhism into Japan and propagated based on Manpuki-ji head temple in Kyoto. Ingen ordered Sokuhi to come to Japan as his assistant in 1657. Answering Ingen’s expectation, Sokuhi worked mainly in Nagasaki as a head priest of Sofuku-ji temple, which was very important temple of Obaku school for Chinese there. Then he dared to accept Ogasawara’s invitation to Kokura and strived to build Kojusan Fukuju-ji temple and took seat of the first head priest of it. Because of this historical background, this temple has Chinese exterior as shown in the photo.
In this connection, the Ogasawara clan was a faithful retainer of the Tokugawa shogun family for long time, so the clan was highly expected to oversee the powerful outside daimyos in Kyushu and Western Japan. Hence, Kokura was fiercely attacked by Mouri clan in present Yamaguchi Prefecture in the last years of the Tokugawa Shogunate when Tokugawa’s power weakened. The castle and other important buildings were reduced to ashes though, the main building of the temple fortunately survived.
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