Virtual Fushimi 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #4 Kannon-ji Temple

     How many Kannon-ji Temples do we have in Japan?  Kannon-ji Temple in Fushimi is one of many.  Legend has it that Prince Shotoku (574-622) established the temple, whose main deity is Arya Avalokitesvara, who is the human-figure prototype of other 6 metamorphoses of Avalokitesvara.

     A guidebook about Kyoto, which was published in 1787, says, “The main deity is the Kannon statue, which used to be the guardian Buddha for Lady Tokiwa, who was the mother of Minamoto Yoshitsune (1159-1189).”

     When Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598) built Fushimi Castle, he moved the temple south to Mukojima.  Under the Tokugawa Shogunate, it was moved back to the present place.  The temple most thrived when Jiun (1718-1805) worked for it.  He wrote the great work of the Introduction to Sanskrit, which was appreciated by Sylvain Levi (1863-1935), a French scholar who taught Sanskrit in  Ecole pratique des hautes etudes.