Old Edo 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #14 Joju-in Temple

     Tsukudo Shrine is another shrine than Tsukudo Hachiman Shrine.

     Taira Masakado (903-940) was the leader of the largest insurgent troops against the ancient central government.  He intended to build an independent country in the Kanto Region.  He was killed and his head was exposed to public in the central capital.

     Legend has it that his followers stolen the head, brought it back to Tsukudo, Kami-Hirakawa Village, Toshima County, Musashi Province, and buried it there.  Masakado was believed to have made a curse god with the power of thunderbolts, and the site became a shrine, Tsukudo Shrine.

      According to another legend, when Masakado was shot in the middle of his forehead by Fujiwara Hidesato (891-958), his head flew away with his helmet on.  It landed at Tsukudo, Kami-Hirakawa Village, Toshima County, Musashi Province.   Villagers carved an Avalokitesvara statue with a sword on.  Some said that it was Masakado that had believed in the statue while he had been alive.  Others believed that the statue had duplicated Masakado after his death.

     Does an armed Avalokitesvara sound irrational to you?  Not really so.

     According to Lotus Sutra Chapter XXV, Avalokitesvara, to save people, manifest herself/himself/itself: #1 into the form of a Buddha, #2 into the form of a pratyekabuddha, #3 into the form of a sravaka, #4 into the form of Brahma, #5 into the form of Sakra, #6 into the form of isvara, #7 into the form of Mahesvara, #8 into the form of the great commander of the devas, #9 into the form of Vaisravana, #10 into the form of a minor king, #11 into the form of a wealthy man, #12 into the form of a householder, #13 into the form of a state official, #14 into the form of a brahman, #15 into the form of a monk, #16 into the form of a nun, #17 into the form of a layman, #18 into the form of a  laywoman, #19 into the form of a wife of a wealthy man, #20 into the form of a wife of a householder, #21 into the form of a wife of a state official, #22 into the form of a wife of a brahman, #23 into the form of a boy, #24 into the form of a girl, #25 into the form of a deva, #26 into the form of naga, #27 into the form of yaksa, #28 into the form of gandharva, #29 into the form of asura, #30 into the form of garuda, #31 into the form of kimnara, #32 into the form of mahoraga, or #33 into the form of Vajrapani.

     The Avalokitesvara statue with a sword on in Tsukudo Shrine could have been interpreted as #8 the form of the great commander of the devas.

     We have more sites where the head (the heads?) of Masakado were buried.  But let’s get back to Tsukudo Shrine and the Kannon-do Hall in Tsukudo.

     The Tokugawa Shogunate, the then central government, established the danka system, under which the affiliation with a Buddhist temple became compulsory to all citizens.  And shinto shrines were supposed to syncretize themselves with Buddhism.  Tsukumo Shrine had to have its shrine temple, and chose the Kannon-do Hall with the head of Masakado to syncretize with.  They turned it Ryogon-ji Temple.

     In 1868, the Meiji Government, the then central government, ordered to separate Shinto from Buddhism and vice versa.  Ryogon-ji Temple was abolished then.

     How have Masakado, with his defiant mind,  felt each time the then central governments trifled with his religious status?

Address: ２ Tsukudohachimancho, Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo 162-0815