Tsugaru 33 Kannon Pilgrimage

     Tsugaru Nobuyoshi (1619-1655), the third lord of the Hirosaki Domain, has been believed to have organized Tsugaru 33 Kannon Pilgrimage either in 1645 or in 1653 as a part of the memorial religious service for those who were killed during independence of the domain, or of the clan, from the Nambu Clan and for those who died during the process of developing the Hirosaki Plain.  Nobuyoshi himself had gone through 2 grave incidents.  Whether the incidents influenced the organization of Tsugaru 33 Kannon Pilgrimage or not is unknown.

     In 1634, the power struggle between old-timer and newcomer vassals broke out.  The central shogunate government stepped in, and several leaders of the both sides were exiled.

     In 1647, the power struggle between Nobuyoshi's supporters and Nobuhide's broke out.  Nobuhide was Nobuyoshi's younger brother and a child of his father's lawful wife, who was the niece of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616).  Nobuyosi, meanwhile, was a child of his father's concubine, who was a daughter of Ishida Mitsunari (1560-1600).  Ieyasu and Mitsunari had fought a decisive battle over the ruling of Japan in Sekigahara on September 15, 1600.  Some of Nobuhide's supporters were exiled or ordered to commit seppuku.

     In those years in the mid-17th century, however, as half a century had passed since the establishment of the Tokugawa Clan's sovereign over Japan, the general public had become stable and settled, and Saigoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage came into fashion nationwide.  Even in Hirosaki, which was very far from Saigoku, people organized associations to save money to send their representatives to Saigoku.  Some of them brought back a handful of the soil of each of Saigoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage temples, and delivered the soil to the corresponding temple of Tsugaru 33 Kannon Pilgrimage.  Thus, even ordinary people could make the 33 Kannon Pilgrimage domestically, and the domain government could stop the drain of money to other domains.

     At first, the 33 temples used to be in and around the castle town, Hirosaki.  In the mid-18th century, as the Tsugaru Clan’s rule over the Hirosaki Domain infiltrate into every corner of the domain, Tsugaru 33 Kannon Pilgrimage was reprganized, and spread across the territory.  Today, we have to travel more than 400 kilometers to visit all the 33 temples.

     Time has passed, and more than two-thirds of Tsugaru 33 Kannon Pilgrimage temples have no priest to live there and to offer a certificate of visit.  Some Kannon statues have been supported by the community neighbors.