Virtual Quasi-Chichibu 34 Kannon Pilgrimage #4 Sairyo-ji Temple

     It is not recorded when Sairyo-ji Temple was founded.  The precincts preserve 4 tombstones which were built before the builders' death.  The older two were built in October, 1440 by Dogen and Myoshin, both of which sound posthumous Buddhist names.  From the epitaphs of the newer two, only the era name, Bunmei, can be deciphered.  They were built sometime between 1469 and 1486.

     In March, 1440, Yuki War broke out.

     Ashikaga Harutora was born on June 13, 1394.  At the age of 9, he entered Seiren-in Temple, on June 21, 1403.  On March 4, 1408, he became a priest, and was named Gien.  Ashikaga Yoshikazu (1407-1425) and Yoshimochi (1386-1428) died of a disease one after another, and the shogunate became vacant.  Chief vassals assembled at Iwashimizu-Hachiman-gu Shrine and decided the next shogun by lot on January 17, 1428.  And Gien became the sixth shogun, Yoshinori (1394-1441), who assassinated his political opponents one after another.

     Yoshinori cornered Ashikaga Mochiuji (1398-1439), the deputy shogun in Kamakura, into suicide.  Yuki Ujitomo (1402-1441) sheltered Mochiuji’s 2 sons, Shuno-maru and Yasuo-maru, in his castle, and rebelled against Yoshinori in March, 1440.  On July 29, the Yuki Castle was surrounded by the overwhelming strength of the shogunate army.  The outcome was self-evident from the very beginning.  Yet, the Yuki Family held the castle for nearly a year.  On April 16, 1441, the castle finally fell.  Ujitomo and his son were killed in the fights.  Shuno-maru and Yasuo-maru were arrested and were to be transferred to Kyoto.  But on their way, at Tarui, Mino Province, they were killed, with their death poems left:

“Summer weeds,

Their flowers blooming in Aono Field

Who knows their future?” (Shuno-maru)

“Who knows the future?

Our lives are to be limited today

Here away from home.” (Yasuo-maru)

     In 1440, Dogen and Ryosin might have had a presentiment, or a resolution, that they would die before long.  The Yuki Castle was located about 100 kilometers north-northeast from Sairyo-ji Temple.

     Then, what happened between 1469 and 1486?

     The Kyotoku War lasted for 28 years from 1454 till 1482.  During the war, Ashikaga Shigeuji (1438-1497), the Deputy Shogun in Kamakura, relinquished Kamakura and moved to Koga in 1457.  In 1458, the Muromachi Shogunate sent out another deputy shogun, Ashikaga Masatomo (1435-1491), from Kyoto for Kamakura, but he couldn’t enter Kamakura and stayed in Horikoshi, Izu Province.  From then on, there were Koga Deputy Shogun and Horikoshi Deputy Shogun in the Kanto Region.  On October 14, 1459, the 2 camps had a big battle in Ota Manor, Musashi Province. That was the start of the Warring States Period in the region.

     The builders might have had premonition that they would be killed in a battle at any time.  Actually, anyone could be killed anywhere anytime in any battle in the Warring States Period.

     According to a tradition, Sairyo meant West Dormitory.  There might have been a hermitage used as a kind of a dormitory long before the temple was established.  In the dormitory, people might have temporarily averted their eyes from unavoidable death.

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