Virtual Ika 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #12 Isono-ji Temple

     Isono-ji Temple used to be the shrine temple of Akami Shrine.  In 600, clear water with psychic power gushed out in the shrine.  Prince Shotoku (574-622) visited the spring, carved an Avalokitesvara statue out of a tree growing by the spring, built a temple, and enshrined the statue in it.  The temple was burnt down during the Warring States Period.

     The main deity today is Ekadasamukha, who has 11 faces.  The statue is presumed to have been made by the beginning of the Edo Period.

     Xuanzang (602-664) had translated the Eleven-Faced Avalokitesvara Sutra into Chinese, and most Ekadasamukha statues, which have 11 faces, in Japan were carved according to the description in the sutra.  They stand with their left arm raised, holding a jug with a crimson lotus flower in it, and with their right arm lowered, showing the right palm to give hope.  But a few statues hold a crosier in the right hand, which is typically found in Hase-dera Temple.

     Oddly enough, the statue in Isono-ji Temple lowers its arm and shows its right palm.  But it stands with a crosier placed against the right palm.  The villagers surely made the second-generation statue as an ordinary Ekadasamukha statue first, but later they might have felt more in a state of grace with the Hase-dera-style, or just found the style more fashionable.