Honnō-ji Temple

In front of you is Honnō-ji, a Buddhist temple of the Hokke school. For any Japanese person, its name brings one word to mind: betrayal.

1A dawn in 1582

On 21 June 1582 Oda Nobunaga, the warlord who had brought half of Japan under his control, was sleeping at Honnō-ji with a small escort. One of his generals, Akechi Mitsuhide, who was supposed to march his army west, turned round and surrounded the temple. With no way out, Nobunaga took his own life as the building burned. His body was never identified with certainty. Why Mitsuhide betrayed him is still one of the great debates of Japanese history.

The Honnō-ji of that night was not here but a little over a kilometre to the south-west, around Aburanokōji and Takoyakushi, where a stone marker now stands. Mitsuhide survived only thirteen days: he was defeated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Nobunaga’s successor, who in 1591 ordered the temple rebuilt on this site.

2A temple against fire

Honnō-ji burned again in the great fire of 1788 and in that of 1864. The present main hall dates from 1928. Look at the signs: the temple writes its name with an old variant of the character 能 and explains that it prefers it because it lacks the shape associated with fire. That spelling was common before the Meiji era.

Behind the main hall is Nobunaga’s memorial tomb, built on the orders of his third son, Oda Nobutaka.

3What to look for

• The character 能 in its old form, on the gate and the lanterns.
• The main hall of 1928, in dark wood.
• The path to Nobunaga’s tomb, behind the hall.