Virtual Tama River 34 Kannon Pilgrimage #10 Seikyo-ji Temple

 

     Oda Tomoharu (1529-1582) used to live in Hitachi Province.  For some reason, he left for Sagami Province with his mother, and was employed by the Later Hojo Clan.  When Tomoharu’s descendant, Sadahisa (?-1616), was working and fighting for the clan in Hachioji Castle, whose castle lord was Hojo Ujiteru (1542-1590), he revived a Kannon-do building in Otsuka as Seikyo-ji Temple, whose main deity is the thousand-armed Sahasrabhuja statue, which had been carved by Unkei (?-1223).

     After the collapse of the Later Hojo Clan in 1590, Sadahisa and his son, Gentazaemon, stayed in Hachioji.  Presumably they had some farmland in Otsuka.  Later, Gentazaemon was employed by Matsudaira Tadayoshi (1580-1607), a younger brother of Tokugawa Hidetada(1579-1632), the second shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate.  Tadayoshi died young, and Gentazaemon was employed by Tokugawa Yorifusa (1603-1661).  As Yorifusa became the first lord of the Mito Domain in Hitachi Province, Gentazaimon moved with him to the province, his ancestor’s homeland, changing his name to Genzaemon for some reason.

     The temple’s precincts have a pond with salty water, where unique type of shijimi mussels inhabit.  In the back of the temple, there stands a shrine, with its deity, a fragment of an iron pot which was used to produce salt.  That is why the temple’s sango is Shiogama, literally Salt Pot.

Address: 378 Otsuka, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0352

Phone: 042-676-8801