Aizu 33 Kannon Pilgrimage

     Aizu 33 Kannon Pilgrimage was organized in 1643 by Hoshina Masayuki (1611-1673), the first lord of the Aizu Domain in the Edo Period.  He was worried over the outflow of a large amount of money caused by his people’s going on Saigoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage.

     Masayuki was also a patron of Yamazaki Ansai(1619-1682), one of the Japanese Neo-Confucianism scholars during the Edo Period, and together with him wrote the Aizu House Code, which included a direct injunction to be loyalty to the Tokugawa Shogunate, which later led the domain to the disastrous defeats at the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate.