Virtual Quasi-Saigoku Inage 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #12 Fukuo-ji Temple

 

     The precincts has many itabi, dated 1334, 1336, 1365 (the 4th year of Teiji, which was used in the ares which supported the Northern Court), 1441, 1483 and etc.  Although they have more fragments of itabi, but we cannot read the inscriptions because they have been worn away.  The site had been a holy place long before the establishment of Fukuo-ji Temple.

     Fukuo-ji Temple itself was founded in Kamakura by the 37th head priest of Enkaku-ji Temple in Kamakura, Reichiku.  The year of his death is unrecorded but the 36th, Myoken, died in 1369, and the 38th, Zeei, died in 1378, so Reichiku could have died in 1360’s or in 1370’s.  Fukuo-ji Temple became discontinued in Kamakura.

     It was either Priest Setsu-something (?-1602) or Priest Sekiin who removed it to Arima Village and restored it.  If it was Priest Sekiin who did it, he did it in 1731.  Anyway, technically speaking, what either of them did was title transfer to meet the religious regulation of the Tokugawa Shogunate.  Mamiya Kotonobu (1777-1841), who compiled the New Chorography on Musashi Province at the beginning of the 19th century, deduced that it was Priest Setsu-something who did it.  Priest Sekiin might have just done some application to meet the regulations of the shogunate.

Address: 5 Chome−14−22 Arima, Miyamae Ward, Kawasaki, Kanagawa 216-0003