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 Heijōkyō 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 subtemples *shi-in 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 shi-in 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 earth 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.