Kikuchi Gozan: Nanpukuji Temple

In the medieval period, the site of Nanpukuji Temple was on the southern outskirts of the castle town of Waifu, near the Furuike fort used by the Kikuchi clan to keep watch over the region. The temple’s strategic location may have played a role when Kikuchi Takemitsu (1319–1373) chose Nanpukuji as one of the Kikuchi Gozan (Five Temples), a group of Zen temples that enjoyed the protection of the Kikuchi clan in exchange for performing various administrative and religious duties. Except for one central temple, each of the Gozan oversaw one of the four points of the compass, and Nanpukuji was charged with supervision of the south.

Establishing the Gozan system was one of the many reforms Takemitsu implemented to restore the Kikuchi clan’s standing after a period of political decline. By giving these five temples special status, Takemitsu was following a tradition that began in China during the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279) and was brought to Japan by the Kamakura shogunate (1185–1333). The purpose of the Kamakura Gozan system was both to promote Zen, the school of Buddhism favored by the Kamakura shoguns, and to incorporate its temples into the government bureaucracy, thereby strengthening the shogunate’s control over the country and its people. The twin objectives of religious virtue and administrative benefits were also the motivations for Takemitsu’s introduction of the Gozan system to Kikuchi.

The principal object of worship at Nanpukuji today is a sixteenth-century wooden statue of Yakushi, the Buddha of medicine and healing.

※About the Kikuchi clan.（菊池一族とは）

※Other cultural property explanatory boards are also multilingual.（この他の文化財説明板も多言語化しています。）

手洗山南福寺

　南福寺は出田の南、花房台地の崖下にある遊水地を持つ堂宇で、本尊は高さ８１．４ｃｍ、肩幅３６ｃｍの薬師如来坐像です。

　『国郡一統志』には「手水山南禅寺ハ薬師像ヲ安ジ、壇下ニ清泉有ル故、之ヲ名ヅク」とあり、『肥後国誌』に「台（天台）宗ノ古跡と云ヘドモ開基分明ナラズ」と記され、文化１１年（１８１４）頃の『河原手永手鑑』には「薬師堂　菊池公時代手水山南福寺ト唱ヘ、五山ノ内」とあります。

　１５代菊池武光が五山を定めたとき、その一寺となりました。『菊池風土記』によれば、もとは天台宗でしたが浄土宗になったとあります。付近一帯には五輪塔も散在しており、この地にいた菊池一族の武将で出田氏に関係したものかと思われます。寺の上に「イワミさんの墓」と称される全高３１８ｃｍの五輪塔があり、その東方の通称ミツル山には「永正十五歳戌寅（１５１８）」と刻まれた自然石板碑があります。