Virtual Yokohama City 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #11 Empuku-ji Temple

     In 1430, Priest Shingen found a Jizo statue in a bamboo forest.  He built a hut to enshrine it.  Priest Zenyo (?-1531) made it a real temple, and named it Empuku-ji.  In 1927, it moved to the present place due to the land rezoning in Yokohama.  The statue is about 50 centimeters tall, and it is unknown who buried it in the bamboo forest and why.  The year 1427 had bad harvests due to poor weather, and the year 1428 had an epidemic of three-day disease (likely cholera) as well.  Around Kyoto, the first uprising by peasants broke out.  Even in Kanto, there might have been some unrecorded disturbance, which could have forced someone to hide a Buddhist statue for fear of robbery or arson.

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