Quasi-Saigoku Inage 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #1 Kofuku-ji Temple

 

     According to the web page of the Kawasaki City Board of Education, Kofuku-ji Temple was founded by Ennin (794-864) sometime between 834 and 848.  It was revived by Priest Choben sometime in the Kamakura Period (1185-1333).

     The temple’s Arya Avalokitesvara statue is 1.593 meters tall, and is presumed to have been made at the end of the Kamakura Period or in the Nanboku-cho Period (1336-1392), judging from the hairdo of putting up the hair into a high topknot and the clean-cut pleats.

     In 836, Ennin made the first try to ship to China.  In 837, he made the second try.  Finally on July 2, 838, he reached Yang Province, China.

     He returned to Hakata Port, Kyushu, on September 19, 847.  His only chance to visit the village might have been either in 834 or in 848.  He died on April 3, 854.

     The web page positively introduces oral tradition which says that the precincts is the site of the mansion of Inage Shigenari (?-1205), that the main hall enshrines his statue made in the Azuchi-Momoyama Period (1568-1600), and that the precincts also has Shigenari’s gorinto (literally "five-ringed tower"), a Japanese type of Buddhist pagoda, which is said to be his grave.

     The New Chorography on Musashi Province, which was compiled by Mamiya Kotonobu (1777-1841) at the beginning of the 19th century, tells us another interpretation of the temple history:  "The temple’s mountain name, sango, used to be Matsumoto-san, but it was renamed Inage-san recently, claiming the temple to be Shigenari-related historic spot. That's utterly distorted.  They say the temple was founded by Ennin as a Tentai Sect temple, and converted to the Shingon Sect by Priest Choben, who is said to have revived the temple.  The temple has a Buddhist tablet which records the past priests; Choben, who died on January 10, 1227, the second priest, Churen, and so on.  However, the head of the village said the temple had been founded by his ancestor some 140 years before.  Then, Priest Joken, who died on August 12, 1703, must have founded the temple.  The temple Ennin founded and which Choben revived was another temple which used to be where Kofuku-ji Temple is located today, and Joken made good use of the precincts to establish a new temple.”

     Kotonobu continued turning down the temple’s antiques: The Acalanatha picture, which is said to have drawn by Kukai, and which was presented by Tazawa Shigeyoshi from Nakamura Village sometime between 1558 snd 1570.  The Arya Avalokitesvara statue, which is said to have been carved by Gyoki, and which is said to have been the guardian Buddhist image of Inage Shigenari.  The Ksitigarbha statue, which is also said to have been carved by Gyoki.  The statue of Inage Shigenari.  The Buddhist tablet of Inage Shigenari.  Someone even brought an old five-ringed tower from somewhere else to make it a grave of Inage Shigenari.  The site of an old fort behind the temple is fussed up to be the castle of Inage Shigenari.

     As Kotonobu pointed them out, those involved in tourism today might feel a little bit ashamed.  Quasi-Saigoku Inage 33 Kannon Pilgrimage had been organized about half a century before Kotonobu made interviews to compile the New Chorography on Musashi Province.  He was worried over the historic spots being fabricated to attract sightseers.

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