Virtual Buso 48 Kannon Pilgrimage #29 Fukusho-ji Temple

     The New Chorography on Musashi Province, which was compiled by Mamiya Kotonobu (1777-1841) at the beginning of the 19th century, said that Fukusho-ji Temple was founded by Priest Keie (?-1683).

     Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604-1651), the third shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate, dissolved many clans to strengthen the power of the shogunate.  This increased the number of masterless and jobless samurai and destabilized society.  To restabilize the society, he strengthened the danka system.  Every citizen was supposed to belong to a Buddhist temple.  That was a business opportunity for would-be priests.  Keie might have taken full advantage of the opportunity.

     When Kotonobu compiled the chorography, he carried out detailed field survey, made careful interviews, and read old documents in detail.  However, he wasn’t lucky enough to find a document which Suzuki Magobe had at home in Sagamihara City.  According to the document which was found in October, 1937, Fukusho-ji Temple was founded in 1233 by Priest Genryo, and was financially supported by Amano Kiyohiko.

     Kiyohiko often heard the auditory hallucinations of cicadas chirping.  He prayed to an Avalokitesvara statue, and asked the Kamakura Shogunate, on July 15, 1233, to let him found a temple.  Hojo Yasutoki (1183-1242) ordered the supervisor on temples, Tajimi Kaiki, to approve the foundation and to let Kiyohiko use the latter half of the era name, Tenfuku, in the first half of the temple’s name.  The temple’s sango is Semi-san or Mount Semi, literally Mount Cicada, which somewhat sounds like Shumi-sen, or Mount Sumeru, which is the sacred five-peaked mountain of Buddhist cosmology and which is considered to be the center of all the universes.  Yasutoki might have been a witty person.

     Anyway, Priest Keie might have revived Fukusho-ji Temple in the 17th century.

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