Kogetsuin Temple

Kogetsuin is the ancestral temple of the Matsudaira family, the clan from which Tokugawa Ieyasu descended. Founded as Jakujoji in 1367, it was expanded and renamed by Matsudaira Chikauji in 1377, who donated the main Amida Buddha statue and built several halls. After Ieyasu unified Japan, the temple was granted significant landholdings, and subsequent Tokugawa shoguns contributed gates and buildings to maintain their ancestors' graves. Those tombs are arranged on a small terrace at the back of the grounds, above the graves of former priests. The setting is compact and quiet, and the temple's long tie to the Tokugawa lineage makes it worth a visit for anyone tracing the early history of the shogunate.