Old Edo 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #23 Shonen-ji Temple

     On May 8, 1615, the Osaka Castle fell and the Toyotomi Clan was finally destroyed by the Tokugawa Clan.  In the year, Shonen-ji Temple might have been founded by Priest Ryoko.  Or it was in 1652 that it might have been established.

     In 1651, the Keian Uprising  broke out.  On April 20, Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604-1651), the third shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate, had died and Ietsuna (1641-1680) had been inaugurated as the 4th shogun on August 18.  Yui Shosetsu (1605-1651) and Marubashi Chuya (?-1651) planned a coup d'état attempt to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate.

     Though the attempt failed, it was historically significant as an indication of a wider problem of disgruntled ronin, masterless and thus jobless samurais, throughout the country at the time.  The Keian Uprising was followed by the Joo Uprising in 1652, involving several hundred ronin.

     Samurais got masterless and jobless when their master or lord was abolished.  The Toyotomi Clan was the largest to have been abolished, and the Tokugawa Shogunate continued to abolish other rivalry clans one by one, which caused more and more ronin.

     After those uprisings, the Tokugawa Shogunate changed their policies against the latent rivalry clans.

     In the 17th century, on the other hand, the Tokugawa Shogunate established the danka system, and every citizen in Japan was supposed to belong to a Buddhist temple.  Accordingly, the number of temples increased.

     Even if you became a masterless samurai unluckily, if you were intelligent enough, you could make a monk or a priest.

     Even today, even if you lost your job, you could change jobs.  Only if you had mastered computer engineering or something. couldn't you?

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