The bell tower at Senjuji is a typical Japanese Buddhist design. It is square, and 12 pillars support a heavy hip-and-gable roof. Visually it resembles the bell tower at Tōdaiji Temple in Nara, but there is no evidence of any connection during the bell tower’s construction. The tower is believed to have been completed in 1713 based on an inscription found on one of the roof tiles during a major restoration in 1993.

The temple bell was lost in the 1645 fire that devastated most of Senjuji. A new bell was cast in 1652, on the sixth anniversary of the death of Gyōchō Shōnin (1614–1646), fifteenth abbot of the temple. Gyōchō died in an act of self-sacrifice to protect the temple’s most valuable treasures. Gyōchō went to Edo (now Tokyo) to report having assumed his father’s position as head abbot of Senjuji. However, he was heavily criticized for receiving such a promotion without the permission of the shogunate. The daimyo of the Tsu domain tried to smooth things over, but the shogunate stipulated that documents written by the temple’s founder, Shinran Shōnin (1173–1263), would have to be turned over to the shogunate. To refuse was a matter of death, and Gyōchō committed seppuku in Edo at the age of 32 rather than hand over the most prized possession of the temple.

Creation of the new bell was sponsored by Gyōchō’s wife, the eldest daughter of the first daimyo of the Tsu domain, who hoped that the sound of the bell would carry her husband’s memory in every direction. She commissioAned the bell from Tsuji Echigo no Kami Shigetane (dates unknown), a master craftsman from Tsu domain.

The bell is rung every morning at 6:30 and before services in the Mieidō.