Ika 33 Kannon pilgrimage ---In My Order---

     The isthmus between Wakasa Bay and Ise Bay is the narrowest and, accordingly, the lowest part of Honshu Island.  The Fukasaka Pass between Wakasa Bay and Lake Biwa has only the altitude of 370 meters when Lake Biwa is 86 meters above sea level.  The area around the pass lets the northern winds from the Sea of Japan blow into the Kohoku area.  The winds make the air moist and have the snow fall a lot in winter.   In winter, Kohoku is, in the weather forecast, sorted into the regions along the Japan Sea coast, while it is grouped into Central Kinki (or Central Kansai) in the other seasons.  As the Japan Sea coast has good sake breweries, so does Kohoku.

     While it is the geography and climate that brews the culture as well as good Japanese sake there, it is Mt. Ibuki that governs the spirit of the culture.  People in the Kohoku area much more care about the downdrafts from Mt. Ibuki, which is 1,377 high, than about the northern winds through the Fukasaka Pass.  The climate and the attention to Mt. Ibuki nurtured their unique belief in Avalokitesvara.

     Some believe in Arya Avalokitesvara.  Arya Avalokitesvara can metamorphose into 6 forms according to those who are to be relieved: Ekadasamukha, who has 11 faces; Sahasrabhuja, who has 1,000 arms; Cintamanicakra, who usually has 6 arms and holds chintamani (a wish-fulfilling jewel) in one of the six; Hayagriva , who has the head of a horse; Cundi, who has 16 arms and appears to be female; and Amoghapasa, who usually has 3 eyes and 8 arms.  It is those metamorphoses that have been believed in around the Kohoku area.  Some even argue Avalokitesvara can transform the figure into 33 types.  It is the argument that the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage, which has 33 Avalkitesvara temples, has been based on for more than a millennium.

#5 Dogan-ji Kannon-do Temple

     My wife asked me to take her to Kannon-no-sato in Kohoku, in the northern part of Shiga Prefecture.  I found the Ekadasamukha statue in Doganji Kannondo in Kogen-ji Temple very impressive.  What impressed me most?

     In 736, smallpox broke out.  Emperor Shomu  (701-756) ordered Priest Taicho (682-767) to exorcize the illness.  The priest carved statue of Ekadasamukha, who has 11 faces, and established Kogen-ji Temple.  In 790, Saicho (767-822), the founder of Tendai Sect of Buddhism in Japan, erected full-scale temple buildings.  In 1570, the temple was burnt down in the battle between the Asai and Oda Clans.  Priest Koen and the villagers buried the statue under the ground to save it from flames and robbery.  Later, Koen changed his sect to True Pure Land Buddhism and converted Kogen-ji Temple to Kogen-ji Temple, in other Chinese-character notation with the same pronunciation.  In the late 16th century, Japan was where inferiors overpowered superiors.  That was not only among samurais.  But those engaged in commerce and industry were challenging the conservative privileged classes.  In Omi Province, the former usually believed in True Pure Land Buddhism, while the latter in Tendai Sect.  True Pure Land Buddhism forbade member temples to enshrine other Buddhist images than that of Amitabha.  That might have been where the name Doganji, which obviously sounds like a temple name, came from.  In 1828, Ika County 33 Kannon Pilgrimage was organized, and Kannondo became its member.  By the time, its go-eika, temple's tanka poem chant, had been composed:

     "The sea of illusion is deep for everyone.

     "A boat of teachings

     "Will ferry them to the shore temple.”

     Some go-eika have their temple names in them.  So, it was by the time that the area came to be called Doganji (literally Ferry Shore Temple).

     Even in 1897, it was just Kannondo (Avalokitesvara shrine) that had the title to the Ekadasamukha statue.  In 1942 during the World War II, it got to belong to Kogen-ji Temple under the Religious Organizations Act.  Whatever political or legal status the statue has had, it is villagers that have maintained the statue for centuries.

To be continued