Virtual Kanesawa 34 Kannon Pilgrimage #22 Kinzan-ji Temple

     Yabeno Village used to have 2 temples; Raigo-ji and Kinzan-ji.  When Hayashi Jussai (1768-1841), Mamiya Kotonobu (1777-1841) and others compiled the New Chorography on Musashi Province at the beginning of the 19th century, the 2 temples already had no priests.

     Tradition says that a man from Awa Province was wandering around with the Arya Avalokitesvara statue on his back.  He got to Yabeno and settled, built a hermitage, and enshrined the statue.  That was the start of Kinzan-ji Temple.

     After the Meiji Restoration, in 1868, the 2 temples were abolished, and their 2 deities were kept in the warehouse of Uchida Heikuro, the chief of Yabeno Village.  In 1877, cholera raged in and around Yokohama.  In Yokohama alone, 635 people died.  Avalokitesvara appeared in Heikuro’s dream, and said, “If you let me go out in public, I will save your village.”  Heikuro raised contributions from villagers and built a temple at the site of Raigo-ji Temple, put the 2 deities in it, and named the new temple Raiko-ji.  The disease repeated spreading for about a decade.

     Yakuo-ji Temple shares the precincts with Raiko-ji.  Yakuo-ji Temple has 3 kinds of traditions for the history of its Bhaisajyaguru statue.  One of the three says that Ennin (794-864) carved the statue to make it his guardian Buddhist image during his stay in China to study Buddhism.  The statue was kept in Enryaku-ji Temple in Mt. Hiei.  When Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) destroyed and burnt all buildings of Enryaku-ji Temple, killing monks, laymen, women, and children, Monk Baizan escaped from the massacre with the statue on his back.  He made his escape flight through Okamoto, Omi Province, to Ise Province.  From Ise, he went to Musashi Province, and reached Yabeno Village.

     The 2 traditional stories tell us that Yabeno was a good shelter for fugitives.  In 1966, they started building housing complexes and housing estates in and around Yabeno. As construction workers praised the beauty of the sun rising from the sea, the area was renamed Yoko-dai (namely Ocean Light Heights).  About 30 thousand residents are living in the area today.  Yabeno might have attracted fugitives from convention-stricken sticks.

Raiko-ji Temple

Address: 3-12-3 Yokodai, Isogo Ward, Yokohama, Kanagawa 235-0045

Phone: 045-833-2514