Hōkoku-ji

Hōkoku-ji
The entrance of Hōkoku-ji
Basic information
Location	7-4, Jomyoji 2-chome, Kamakura, Kanagawa 248-0003
Affiliation	Rinzai Zen
Country	Japan
Architectural description
Founder	Ashikaga Ietoki Tengan Eko (founding priest)
Completed	1334

Hōkoku-ji (報国寺^?) is an old temple in the Kenchō-ji school of the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism located in Kamakura, Japan. Famous for its bamboo garden, it is also known as "Bamboo Temple".

A statue of Gautama Buddha, called Shaka Nyorai in Japanese, in a sacred hall is the temple's principal image. The original of a statue of Sho Kan'non is on display at the Kamakura Museum of National Treasures. The temple is sometimes called Takuma-dera after the artist of a statue of Kashyap which was destroyed by a fire in 1891 in an adjacent hall.

The temple is No. 10 on the . The grounds cover approximately 13,000 square metres (140,000 sq ft).

The family temple of both the Ashikaga and Uesugi clans, Hōkoku-ji was established by founding priest Tengan Eko in 1334 (the first year of Kemmu era) to commemorate Ashikaga Ietoki, grandfather of Ashikaga Takauji the first shogun of the Ashikaga shogunate.

Known posthumously by his Buddhist name Butsujo Zenji, Eko was a member of the Five Mountains Zen literary school. Copies that he made of Buddhist teachings and carved wooden seals of his names "Tengan" and "Eko" are Important Cultural Properties and are in the Kamakura Museum on the grounds of the Shinto shrine Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū. Other treasures owned by the temple include a painting on silk of Zaichū Kōen dating to 1388, a Muromachi-period painting of Arhats, and a pair of paintings of flowers and birds from Ming China, all Prefectural Cultural Properties kept in the same museum; a number of further works have been designated for protection at a municipal level.