1 A cooking structure which houses a cooking range *kamado 竈. Already in use in the ancient period, the term is believed to derive from kuroya 黒家 (black house) - presumably a reference to the soot generated by the cooking range. The term was originally secular: the service structures of upper class residences in Heijō-kyō 平城京 and in the residential compounds *tate 館 of local government offices gunga 郡衙 of the ritsuryō 律令 state were referred to as kuriya in contemporary documents.
2 Also kuriyadono 厨殿, moridono 盛殿. In large temples of the Asuka-Nara periods, the kuriya was a service structure ancillary to the dining hall *jikidō 食堂. It appears to have formed a pair with another cooking area called *kamaya 釜屋 or ōidono 大炊殿.
3 With the proliferation of priestly residences in the form of semi-independent sub-temples *shiin 子院, especially from the Heian period in Esoteric Buddhist mikkyō 密教 temple complexes such as Mt. Hiei 比叡, a structure to house cooking facilities became a necessity and to this structure the term kuriya was commonly applied. This kind of kuriya increasingly contained the administrative offices of the shiin and accommodated dependents. Gradually, it developed into the *kuri 庫裡.
4 In vernacular houses *minka 民家 of the Edo period in Shimane Prefecture, an alternative term for *daidokoro 台所, the room in the rear part of the house adjacent to the earthen-floored area *doma 土間. Typically a room with a bare timber floor, equipped with a sunken hearth *irori 囲炉裏, and used for cooking and as the principal family living room.