Virtual Ika 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #4 (Amenomori) Kannon-ji Temple

     Amenomori used to be called Amamori-no-sato, Heaven-Descent Village. 

     One day, the founding father of the village, who later became the guardian deity of the village, descended from the heaven.  People named the village Ama-mori, which came to be mispronounced Amenomori later.

Today, Kannon-ji Temple stands at the border between Amenomori and Hoenji townships, but it used to be located at the top of Mt. Kodakami.  It was removed to the village at the turn of the 9th century by Saicho (766-822).  The temple was burned to the ground by Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) in the Battle of Amenomori Riverbank, but the deity escaped to Echizen Province.  Although it came back later, most probably after the province was occupied by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598), the successor of Nobunaga, it was burned to ashes in the fire in 1879, when a great fire broke out in Tokyo and Hakodate as well.  In 1881, the villagers “invited” the present deity from Enryaku-ji Temple, which had been established by Saicho.

There used to be 4 powerful families in the Northern part of Omi Province: Akao, Isono, Iguchi, and Amenomori.  Amenomori Hoshu (1668-1755) was born to a doctor in Amenomori Village.  He studied in Edo, the capital at the time.  He became a Confucian scholar, a Korean translator, and a Chinese translator.  He was such a capable translator to be hired by the Tsushima Domain, which was working a kind of a diplomatic channel fro the Tokugawa Shogunate.  Tsushima Islands lie just between the Japanese Archipelago and the Korean Peninsula, and the domain prospered from the transit trade between the 2 countries.

     Hoshu accompanied Joseon missions to Japan and visited Edo twice.  He also visited Busan 3 times.

Why didn't Hoshu work in Edo, and choose to move to Tsushima for 963 kilometers?

     An Edo short funny story put it:  A Confucian scholar moved to Shinagawa.  His apprentices visited him for the housewarming, and asked, “Why have you moved here from Nihonbashi, which is more convenient?”  The Confucian seriously said, “Shinagawa is nearer to China by 8 kilometers.”

     Then, why didn’t he work for another Western clans who might have been smuggling with China to visit the country?  He was too serious a Confucian scholar to close his eyes to the Tsushima Domain’s smuggling ginseng into Japan besides lawfully importing other goods from Korea.  Unlawfully visiting China to smuggle might have been out of the question for him.