Virtual Quasi-Chichibu 34 Kannon Pilgrimage #18 Hosen-ji Temple

 

     According to oral tradition about Hosen-ji Temple, it was founded by Priest Chisai (?-1521), financially supported by Mamiya Yasutoshi (1518-1590), who was appointed to a magistrate when Hojo Ujitsuna (1487-1541) rebuilt Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu Shrine in Kamakura in 1530’s.  When the Later Hojo Clan garrisoned part of the Izu Sea Forces in Miura Peninsula, Yasutoshi managed them.  The Buddhist memorial tablet of Yasutoshi has been kept in the temple.  But could he support building the temple by the age of 3?

     Another tradition says that it was Mamiya Nobuhuyu who built the temple in 1503.  The temple name Hosen literally means Treasure Spring.  One day, 3 white herons enticed Nobuhuyu to Sueyoshi Village.  He found a spring, and built a temple by the stream.

     According to a family tree, Nobuhuyu was great grandfather of Yasutoshi, and the names of Nobuhuyu’s son and grandson were unrecorded.  Another story says that Nobuhuyu’s son was Nobumori, and Nobumori’s son was Yasutoshi.

     Ise Shinkuro (1432-1519) came from Kyoto to Suruga Province in 1469 to make a warring-state-period hero, and actually carried out his plan.  In 1493, he first started unifying Izu Province, which lay east to Suruga Province, and then moved further east, raiding Sagami Province.  In 1512, he reached Miura County, the easternmost part of the Sagami Province.

     The ancestors of the Mamiya Family used to live in Mamiya Village, Tagata County, Izu Province.  Nobuhuyu might have started working and fighting for Ise Shinkuro, following his dream to make a hero in the Warring States Period.  There came Yasutoshi after 3 generations.  A family tree of the family shows no names of the children and grandchildren of Nobuhuyu.  One document says that there were father and son called Nobumori and Moriyori of the family, but it is unknown whether they were in the direct lineage between Motofuyu and Yasutoshi.  Let me reconstruct the family history.

     Sometime after 1512, when Ise Shinkuro was unifying Izu Province at the age of 59, Nobuhuyu met him.  He was moved by Shinkuro's passion and visions, and started serving in the campaigns.  Shinkuro unified Sagami Province too.  After Shinkuro's death in 1519, Nobuhuyu continued to fight for Ujitsuna, Shinkuro's son.  He invaded the southwester corner of Musashi Province, Kuraki County.

     Priest Chisai (?-1521) might have founded Hosen-ji Temple on one of those days.  In 1523, Ujitsuna changed his family name from Ise to Hojo, employing the brand name in the Kanto Region.  That was the proclamation for war against the Uesugi Clan over the hegemony in the region.  He attacked Kozukue and Edo Castles.  It is unknown when Nobuhuyu died or was killed in a battle.  The Mamiya Family kept working and fighting for the Later Hojo Clan, however incompetent Nobuhuyu's sons and grandsons might have been.

     Then there came a great grandson of Nobuhuyu, a very competent samurai, when Ujitsuna's son, Ujiyasu, was leading the clan.  He might have called himself either Nobu-something or Yori-something first.  He was so competent that Ujiyasu gave him a part of his name, Yasu, and that Nobu-something or Yori-something started calling himself Yasutoshi.

     Yasutoshi was too competent a samurai to die a natural death.  In 1590, when the Later Hojo Clan was destroyed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598), Yasutoshi was fighting for Hojo Ujikatsu (1559-1611) in the Yamanaka Castle in the home province of the family, Izu Province.  He fought bitterly and even killed Hitotsuyanagi Naosue (1546-1590), a member of Kiboroishu (a kind of lifeguard military) of Hideyoshi and the lord of Karuminishi Castle in Mino Province. But he was heavily outnumbered and defeated.  Finally, he dyed his hair black with ink and dashed into the enemy, saying, “It’s a shame to offer my white-haired head to the enemy.”

     The bravery or heroism paid.  Other Mamiya family members became the vassals of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616).  One of the descendants included Kotonobu (1777-1841).  In 1810, the Academy of the shogunate started compiling provincial topographies.  Kotonobu participated in compiling those about Musashi and Sagami Provinces.  Kotonobu also personaly compiled the Chronology of Odawara and others, that became good secondary historical documents to study not only Sagami Province, but the Kanto Region at large in the Warring States Period.

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