Virtual Old Awa 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #4 Shinsho-ji Temple

 

     Empress Asukabe (701-760) asked Gyoki (668-749) to carve 2 statues of Cintamanicakra, who usually has 6 arms and holds chintamani (a wish-fulfilling jewel) in one of the six, to have easy delivery of Prince Motoi (727-’28).  One was enshrined in Obitoke-dera Temple, Nara, and the other was floated in Tatsuta River.  The latter was found off Tomiura, Awa Province by Aoki Masakatsu, who founded Shinsho-ji Temple and enshrined the statue.

     The temple is surrounded with cliffs which have old cave graves or the Cave of the Patriarchs.  As we can find many cave graves in and around Kamakura, so we can guess there used to be bone-collecting-type of a burial ritual practiced across the gateway of the Tokyo Bay.  Hundreds of kilometers off the bay, there runs the Black Current, which might have brought about the burial ritual from Taiwan or Ryukyu.

     The Japanese Archipelago has 34,600 kilometers of shoreline, which is shorter than America’s 56,700 kilometers but longer than Brazil’s 5,760 kilometers.  The islands are washed by the Black and Tsushima Currents from the south and by the Kuril Current from the north.

     The Black Current starts off Philippines, flows northward between the Formosa Island and the Ryukyu Islands, and, turning northeastward, passes between the Ryukyu Islands and the Kyushu Island toward the south coasts of the Shikoku and Honshu Islands, transporting warm, tropical water.  The current brings not only tropical water but also fish, corals, seeds of tropical plants such as coconuts, blocks of dead aromatic trees, and culturally, sometimes even militarily, advanced alien people as well.

     Furukawa Shoken (1726-1807) was a geographer in the latter half of the Edo Period.  He compiled topographies based on his own observation, and also integrated information based on hearsay into memorandums.  “The Memorandum of Hachijo” was a latter case, and was about the Izu Islands including Hachijo Island.  The memorandum was published in 1794, and he mentioned the Black Current in it.

     “The Black Current looks as if an ink stone were rubbed on the surface of the sea.  As hundreds of swirls are mysteriously flowing past, whoever sees the current feels just dazzled.”

     Tachibana Nankei (1753-1805) was a doctor of Chinese medicine in Kyoto, and made rounds of visits to various parts of Japan intermittently from 1782 to 1788.  He published travel essays from 1795 to 1798, which would be collectively called “Journey to the East and to the West” later.  In one of the essays, he recorded a scratch of hearsay information on the Black Current.

     “They say that about 5.5 hundred kilometers off the Izu Peninsula, there are desert islands in the south.  The sea around the islands is called the Black Current.  The current is tens of kilometers wide, and runs like a large river, raging and rolling.

     “Furthermore, if you sail out southeast off Awa and Kazusa Provinces too far, you are washed away east and shall never come back, as the current turns eastward away from our islands.”

     It means Awa Province is the northernmost province that is washed by the Black Current.   The province is just across the gateway of the Edo Bay from Kamakura.

Address: 173 Aoki, Tomiuracho, Minamiboso, Chiba 299-2416