Virtual Ika 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #11 Shomyo-ji Temple

     The Avalokitesvara statue of Shomyo-ji Temple is very unique.  Usually, an Ekadasamukha statue has 11 faces, and the official number of arms a Sahasrabhuja has is 1,000, but this one has 11 faces, officially 1,000 arms, and 1,000 legs!  How acquisitive it is!  Or was it the villagers who were grasping? Seriously, we don’t have a particular Buddhism god corresponding to the form.

     Priest Shocho (1205-1282) edited a collection of what the pioneers of Tendai Sect of Buddhism had said about their doctrines and manners, and called it Asaba Sho or Asaba Extracts.  According to the extracts, Priest Enchin (814-891) studied in China in 853-858, he brought back a statue with 1,000 legs when he left China, and put it in Mii-dera Temple.

     As the statue in Shomyo-ji Temple is presumed to have been made sometime between the 8th and the 12th centuries, it could have been influenced by the statue Enchin might have brought back from China.

     Where did the statue come from?  There are hills between Nishino and Lake Biwa.  Legend has it that there used to be a big port town, Aso-tsu or Aso Port, in the north-west of where Shomyo-ji Temple is located today along Lake Biwa across the hills.  The powerful family there was also called Asotsu, and its head at the time was Hidemichi.  The statue is believed to have belonged to his wife.  The port town was swallowed in a big tsunami, and the survivors brought the statue to Nishino.

     Can’t you believe a tsunami in a lake?  On August 13, 1185, a big earthquake broke out around Kyoto, the hypocenter hasn’t been located yet though, and caused a big tsunami in Lake Biwa.