Kōgaku-ji Temple

, originally Kōgaku-an, is a Buddhist temple belonging to the Rinzai school of Japanese Zen. located in the city of Kōshū, Yamanashi, Japan. It is the head temple of one of fourteen autonomous branches of the Rinzai school. Its main image is a statue of Shaka Nyōrai. The temple, including its famed Japanese garden is not open to the general public.

==History== The temple founded as a hermitage in 1380 by Bassui Tokushō, a noted Zen prelate from Sagami Province, who had trained with Sōtō, Rinzai and Ch'an traditions. Due to the growing popularity of his teachings, he moved further and further into the countryside seeking the peace required for his meditations. His popularity continued after his death, and Emperor Go-Kameyama designated the temple as a chokugan-ji, or "temple to pray for the nation" during the civil wars of the Nanboku-chō period. The temple was heavily sponsored by the Takeda clan, who were the rulers of Kai Province and was awarded with estates and built numerous subsidiary temples and chapels. However, after the fall of the Takeda clan and the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate in the Edo period, the temple gradually fell from prosperity and many of its subsidiary temples were abolished or joined other branches of the Rinzai school. In 1782 much of the original temple complex was destroyed in a fire. After the start of the Meiji period, it became part of the Nanzen-ji branch of Rinzai. It recovered its status as the head temple of its own branch of Rinzai in 1908. Kōgaku-ji today governs eight sub-temples and fifty temple affiliates.