Virtual Quasi-Saigoku Inage 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #27 Enmei-ji

 

     Once upon a time, a villager built a hermitage and named it Myokaku-in.  Priest Senkai turned it into a temple in 1652, and named it Enmei-ji.

     There used to be another hermitage named Shaka-do.  In 1615, when the Siege of Osaka ended, Priest Senkai unified the two to make a temple.

     Once upon a time, the head of the village had a bad horse.  When he was struggling against the horse in his farmland, a boy appeared there and reined back and broke in the horse.  Next morning, when the priest was reciting a sutra, he found the main deity of Ksitigarbha with its feet caked with mud.  Finding it strange and mysterious, the priest talked about it to villagers.  The village head heard the story and realized that it was the Ksitigarbha who reined back his horse. Since then the statue came to be called Reining Ksitigarbha.  Even the horse breeders far in the Tohoku Region worship the deity.

     The Avalokitesvara statue?  Of course, they have one.  It’s a rare one, the bronze statue of Pratyekabuddha Avalokitesvara.   The Akita Family in Kayasaki Village, Tsuzuki County, Musashi Province, had run a smith for generations with the 180-centimeter-tall statue enshrined in their house.  The family business was declining year by year, and became afraid that they had treated the statue too thoughtlessly.  They presented the statue to the temple.

Address: 204 Kamisakunobe, Takatsu Ward, Kawasaki, Kanagawa 213-0034