Yōgen-in Temple

The ceiling boards at Yogen-in Temple retain the dark, mottled stains of human figures. These are not decorative patterns, but the preserved floorboards from Fushimi Castle, where hundreds of samurai committed ritual suicide following a catastrophic defeat in sixteen hundred. When the temple was rebuilt shortly after, the blood-stained wood was installed overhead to honor the fallen soldiers. Visitors walk beneath the outlines of these men, whose tragic end remains etched into the very grain of the temple timber.