Izumi 33 Kannon Pilgrimage ---Along the Osaka Outer Belt Highway---

 

     I visited #22 Choko-ji Temple, #24 Jogan-ji Temple,  #25 Koon-ji Temple, and #26 Mizuma-dera Temple today.  Today, they are located along the Osaka Outer Belt Highway.  Of course, in ancient times, no highway ran in the area, but the construction of the highway means the location of the temples share the same geographical character.  All the 4 temples were located at where rivers ran out of mountainsides.

     I drove southward into the Semboku Hills, cruised through new towns and a new industrial park, and climbed along the Ushitaki River.   Choko-ji temple was located where the Ushitaki River ran out of the Izumi Mountains.  I crossed North Miyagawa Bridge over the river and arrived at the temple, which has only one small hall.  It cannot have a priest, and it was too early to have been opened by villagers.

#22 Choko-ji Temple

     It is unknown when Choko-ji Temple was founded.  It used to be a shrine temple of Tsugawa Shrine nearby.  We can find a written document which says that Emperor Shirakawa (1053-1129) stayed at Yagi Village, Izumi Province, on his way to Kumano Shrines, and prayed to Tsugawa Shrine from there without actually visiting the shrine.  So, the shrine, as well as the temple, must have been founded by the 11th century.

Address: 313 Tsugawacho, Kishiwada, Osaka 596-0104

     I drove out of Choko-ji Temple, crossed the South Miyagawa Bridege.  Several minutes later, I was cruising south along the Osaka Outer Belt Highway.  Jogan-ji Temple was at the foot of the highway where the Tsuda River ran out of the Izumi Mountains.

#24 Jogan-ji Temple

     Jogan-ji Temple was founded by Monk Jogan, and belonged to the Shingon Buddhism at first.  Priest Ryonen turned the temple to the Pure Land Buddhism in 1559, when Ashikaga Yoshiteru (1536-1565) was the 13th Shogun of the Muromachi Shogunate.  In 1553, Yoshiteru was expelled from Kyoto to Kuchiki Village, Omi Province.  He came back to Kyoto in 1559.  Previously between 1527 and 1532, the Sakai Shogunate was in Izumi Province, and Ashikaga Yoshitsuna (1509-1573) was a self-proclaimed shogun.  He was an uncle of Yoshiteru, and his son, Yoshihide (1538-1568), became the 14th Shogun.  Anyway, in the Warring States Period, Izumi Province was one of the main stages of the politics, and, accordingly, power struggles among Buddhist sects and schools were also bitter and keen.

     In the 1680's, Mangan-ji Temple was the #24 member temple of the Izumi 33 Kannon Pilgrimage.  In 1873, Mangan-ji Temple had no priest and was merged into Jogan-ji Temple.

Address: 771 Habutakichō, Kishiwada, Osaka 596-0844

Phone: 072-427-3874

     I left Jogan-ji Temple and cruised along the highway for a while.  I got out of the highway and climbed into hills, where the Chikagi River ran out of the Izumi Mountains.

#25 Koon-ji Temple

     Kannon-ji Temple was founded in Kotsumi Village in 726 by Gyoki(668-749) as one of the 49 temples founded by him in Yamato, Kawachi, and Izumi Provinces.  Kotsumi literally meant Wood Pile.  He piled up wood in the village and carried them out to build those temples.  Kannon-ji Temple was merged by Koon-ji Temple in 1914.

Address: 798 Kotsumi, Kaizuka, Osaka 597-0102

Phone: 072-446-2360

     Mizuma-dera Temple was just a kilometer away from Koon-ji Temple, and I drove along an old route between the 2 temples.  The temple was located where the Kibitani River became cascades and merged into the Chikagi River.

#26 Mizuma-dera Temple

     The 735–737 Smallpox Epidemic killed more than 1 million people including Fujiwara Muchimaro (680-737), the Prime Minister, and his younger brothers: Fusasaki (681-737), Umakai (694-737), and Maro (695-737), who were all ministers.  In June, 737, the central government stopped.  The epidemic had significant social and economic damages, and the state-ownership of fields collapsed.  On May 27, 743, private-ownership of newly developed fields was officially permitted.  Some newly developed fields were just redeveloped fallow fields though.

     The epidemic also had religious repercussions throughout the country.  The Emperor Shomu (701-756) ordered every province to found its own provincial temple and convent, and also founded Todai-ji Temple and constructed its gigantic Vairocana statue, only to bankrupt the national finances.

     Emperor Shomu dreamed Avalokitesvara one night, and he ordered Gyoki (668-749) to find it.  A white bird guided Gyoki southwest to Izumi Province and disappeared with its feather left at Toba, literally Bird Feather.  Gyoki wandered northeast and met 16 children at Chigo, literally Child.  They guided Gyoki to the meeting point of the Chikagi and Kibitani Rivers.  He saw a dragon there and Avalokitesvara appeared.  Presumably, the waterfall had scared local people as a dragon but Gyoki enlightened and relieved them that the waterfall was not a dragon but Avalokitesvara, who would salvage them.  

     The Chinese character, xuan, has a profound meaning of the root of all things.  In some primitive religions, the rocks, hills, or islets which had the shape of xuan used to be believed to be the root of all things, or to be what gave birth to all things.  Later, in East Asia, some of them were related to Mazu.  If you see the second cascade of the waterfall at the meeting point of the Chikagi and Kubitani Rivers, you will realize it has a kind of xuan shape.  Instead of Mazu, Gyoki might have found Avalokitesvara in the shape.

     Its Avalokitesvara story made Mizuma-dera Temple so famous that Emperor Fushimi (1265-1317) sent messengers to the temple.  Yamana Seijuro was one of them.  On the occasion, a village girl, Natsu, fell in love with him.

     In the world of art, the emperor was the far best calligrapher among emperors, and was even considered to be better than Fujiwara Yukinari (972-1027), who was considered to be one of the 3 best calligraphers in Japan besides Ono Michikaze (894-966) and Fujiwara Sukemasa (943-998).  He also had a Royal collection of tanka poems, Gyokuyo Waka-shu. Politically, however, he just raised tensions between the 2 powerful Royal branch families, Jimyoin and Daikakuji, and between the Imperial Court and the Kamakura Shogunate.  That means he prepared the Northern and Southern Courts Period.  In 1336, the war between the Northern and Southern Courts started, and the Southern Court dispatched Kitabatake Akiie (1318-1338) to the Tohoku Region.  He not only ruled the region but also advanced to Kyoto twice in 1335 and 1338.  It is unknown if Yamana Seijuro followed Akiie to the Tohoku Region, but he was supposed to have taken part of, at least, Akiie's second advance.

     The Yamato River used not to run between Osaka and Sakai before Edo Period. In ancient times, the Ishizu River used to be the first large river, or a protective water barrier, when you advanced south from today's Osaka City area.

     Kitabatake Akiie (1318-1338), a general of the Southern Court, was, officially speaking, killed by the Northern Court army led by Ko Moronao (?-1351) at the bank of Ishizu River on May 22nd, 1338.  Tradition says Akiie was killed in Abeno on the 16th. Some suggest he was deadly injured in Abeno on the 16th and died somewhere between Abeno and Ishizu by the 22nd.  At least Kitabatake's soldiers retreated to Wada in today's Izumi City temporarily and advanced back to Ishizu by the 22nd.

     In the Abeno area, Kitabatake Park, which has 4 memorial monuments for Akiie, is just a 10-minute walk from Abeno Shrine, which promotes Akiie to gain visitors.  You can find a tiny shallow valley running north-south between the park and the shrine, or between the hills they stand on. The two hills must have been within a battlefield.  Akiie might have occupied either hill top to command a view of the battlefield, Moronao the other. If Kitabatake Akiie had been killed in the Battle of Abeno, he must have been killed somewhere between the hills.

     I visited Ishizu area on one rainy day. I took off a tram at Ishizu Stop, and walked toward the Ishizu River. The river ran east to west toward Seto Inland Sea, through which Ashikaga Takauji had fought back eastward from Kyushu to Kyoto. The bridge nearby is called Taiyo-bashi, literally Sun Bridge, because people used to worship the sun rising upriver. Most of Akiie's soldiers had fought westward from the Tohoku Region. They could not go back east, nor could see the next sunrise.  It was certain Nambu Moroyuki (?-1338), Akiie's right hand, was killed in the Battle of Ishizu on the day.

     After the defeat in either Abeno or Ishizu, Yamano Seijuro fled in Izumi Province.  Hearing of the defeat of the Southern Court army, Natsu left Mizuma and searched for Seijuro for days.  She found him, brought him back to Mizuma, and the two lived happily ever after.  What happened to the Souther Court?  Were the two too old as they had first met more than 2 decades before?  Never mind!  Based on the story, Namiki Sosuke (1695-1751) produced a bunraku play, Izumi-no-kuni Ukina-tameike, in 1731.  In i936, the story was made into a movie in which Kazuo Hasegawa (1908-1984) and Kinu'yo Tanaka (1907-1977) stared.  Even today, many lovers visit Aizen-do Hall, to which Natsu prayed for meeting Seijuro again, in Mizuma-dera Temple to strengthen their relation.

Address: 638 Mizuma, Kaizuka, Osaka 597-0104

Phone: 072-446-1355

     After visiting Aizen-do Hall, I walked out of the temple and drove home.