Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s Mausoleum (popularly Hokoku Byo and officially Toyokuni Byo)
When Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–1598) was near death at the age of 63, he left orders that his body was to be interred on Mt. Amidagamine in Kyoto. Several months after his death, an extremely ornate shrine was constructed according to his wishes to serve as his final resting place. Emperor Goyōzei (1571–1617) soon elevated Hideyoshi and his shrine to Senior First Rank and bestowed upon him the deity name Toyokuni Daimyojin. Thereafter the shrine was known as Toyokuni Jinja (also pronounced Hokoku Jinja).
Almost immediately after its completion, the shrine became the site of large-scale, festive memorial services. These gatherings alarmed the authorities and led to a falling away of official support. When Hideyoshi’s family was destroyed in 1615, the shrine was left untended and, by the 1770s, it had ceased to exist.
Toyokuni Shrine was reestablished at a new site in 1880, several hundred meters down the hillside. A new mausoleum was also constructed at the summit of the hill. During the construction process, the naturally mummified remains of Hideyoshi were discovered in a seated position facing towards the west, the direction of the Buddha Amida’s Pure Land paradise. The fragile remains were reinterred in the new monument, a five-storied pagoda designed by the famed architect Ito Chuta (1867–1954) in 1898.