Virtual Yokohama City 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #16 Zoroku-in Temple

     A Bhaisajyaguru statue was found in the sea at the beginning of the 9th century.  They built a hall for it, and that is said to have been the start of Zotoku-in Temple.

     It was such an old historic temple that Ashikaga Ujimitsu (1359-1398), the second Kamakura Deputy Shogun under the Muromachi Shogunate of the Ashikaga Clan, copied Prajnaparamitahrdaya, or the Heart Sutra, on the navy blue paper with gold paint, and presented it to the temple.

     In 1442, the landowner of Heiraku Village presented some field to the Bhaisajyaguru Hall.  Who was the landowner?  In 1439, the grandson of Ujimitsu, Mochiuji (1398-1439), was forced to committe suicide with his eldest son, Yoshihisa (1423-1439).  In 1441, Mochiuji’s second and third sons were killed under the order by the shogun.  The shogun was assassinated by his vassals in the same year.  The execution of Mochiuji’s forth son, Shigeuji (1438-1497) wasn’t carried out because of the assassination, and he was to return to Kamakura in 1445.  It is unknown who was ruling the area in 1442.

     Of course, the temple had a Kannon Hall and, amazingly, 33 Kannon statues.  The hall, however, was abolished in 1874, 3 years after the estates of temples and shrines were nationalized. The 33 statues were removed to the Bhaisajyaguru Hall, but all but one were burned down in the Great Kanto Earthquake on September 1, 1923.  It is unknown whether they had just the number 33 of the Kannon statues or the 33 different types of the Kannon statues.

Address: 103 Heiraku, Minami Ward, Yokohama, Kanagawa 232-0035Phone: 045-261-3012