Maeda Toshinaga was the second lord of the Kaga Domain, the million-koku powerhouse that dominated Japan's Hokuriku coast. When he died in 1614, his younger brother Toshitsune -- the third lord -- inherited not just the largest domain in the Tokugawa Shogunate but a deep obligation to honor his predecessor. The temple that would become Zuiryuji was first established in 1613, originally called Hoenji. It was renamed Zuiryuji after Toshinaga's posthumous Buddhist title. Full-scale construction under master craftsman Yamagami Zenemon Yoshihiro began around 1645, during the Shoho era, and continued for roughly twenty years. The resources of a million-koku domain went into every timber joint and copper plate. The result was not merely a memorial but a statement: the Maeda built for eternity.

Zuiryuji follows the shichido garan layout -- the idealized plan of seven essential halls that defines a complete Zen monastery. The compound is arranged along a precise central axis, and the effect is one of geometric calm. You enter through the Somon, the outer gate designed with the defensive architecture of a castle. Beyond it rises the Sanmon, an eighteen-meter main gate originally built in 1654 and reconstructed in 1820. Straight ahead stands the Butsuden, the main Buddha hall, built from zelkova lumber and roofed with lead plates weighing forty-seven tons. Behind it, the Hatto -- the Dharma hall -- covers 616 square meters of cypress flooring. A 300-meter covered corridor links these central structures to the meditation hall, the kitchen, and the great tea house, enclosing the compound in a continuous walkway that frames shifting views of timber and courtyard at every turn.

In 1997, three of Zuiryuji's buildings -- the Sanmon gate, the Butsuden, and the Hatto -- received designation as National Treasures, the highest cultural protection Japan offers to architectural works. The Somon, meditation hall, tea house, and corridors were designated Important Cultural Properties. But the architecture is only part of the collection. Inside the Butsuden, the ceiling of the central room bears a floral motif painted by Kano Yasunobu, a leading artist of the Kano school that dominated Edo-period painting. The temple also holds a painting of Daruma by Sesshu Toyo, the legendary fifteenth-century ink wash master, and a Kannon attributed to Kano Tan'yu. In the central alcove of the main hall, a stele commemorates Toshinaga. The alcoves flanking it divided the space by social rank -- one for receptions by the Maeda family, the other reserved for priests and senior retainers.

Takaoka sits on the Toyama plain where the Hokuriku coast meets the foothills of the Japanese Alps. The city was founded by Maeda Toshinaga himself as a castle town, and Zuiryuji anchored its spiritual life. The temple belongs to the Soto school of Zen Buddhism, one of the two major Zen traditions in Japan, and its architecture reflects Soto practice: the principal Buddha images reside in the Butsuden rather than the Dharma hall, emphasizing meditation and devotion over doctrinal instruction. Today, Zuiryuji is open to visitors year-round, and the Hachomichi path that connects it to Toshinaga's tomb remains walkable -- a straight line through a modern city that traces the memory of a feudal lord back over four centuries. The compound is remarkably intact, its lead-roofed Butsuden and copper-plated halls standing as some of the finest surviving examples of early Edo Zen architecture anywhere in Japan.