Virtual Old Kamakura 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #21 Zoden-ji Temple

 

     Since 1552 till 1569, Uesugi Terutora (1530-1578) and Hojo Ujiyasu (1515-1571) fought against each other severely.  All fo a sudden, in June, 1569, the two concluded an alliance.  Some vassals of the both sides were discontented with the alliance and left the camps.

     In 1570, Priest Sodo (?-1597) built a hermitage in Kami-Kurata Village and named it Saiko-in.

     After the Later Hojo Clan was destroyed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598) in 1590, the Horiuchi Family settled in Kami-Kurata Village as farmers.  They built a hermitage to enshrine their family guardian Buddhist image, the statue of Sahasrabhuja, who has 1,000 arms, which had been carved by Gyoki (668-749).

     Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604-1651), the third shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate, dissolved many clans to strengthen the power of the shogunate.  That increased the number of masterless samurais and destabilized the society.  To stabilize the society, he strengthened the danka system.  Every citizen was supposed to belong to a Buddhist temple.  That increased the number of temples and some masterless samurais became monks or priests.

     In one of those years, Priest Denyo (?-1680) merged the two hermitages and founded a new temple, Zoden-ji Temple.

     In the late Edo Period, Priest Taiun liked composing tanka poems.  Accordingly, many poets and literary men visited the temple.  They included Suzuki Hisayoshi (1774-1846), whose library is still kept in the National Institute of Japanese Literature, Kato Chikage (1735-1808), who started the Chikage style Japanese calligraphy, which Higuchi Ichiyo (1872-1896) studied, and Murata Harumi (1746-1811), whose family business was the fish fertilizer wholesaler which was ruined by his extravagant life.

 

Address: 318 Kamikuratacho, Totsuka Ward, Yokohama, Kanagawa 244-0816

Phone: 045-881-0852