Virtual Gyotoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #11 Ryokyoku-ji Temple

     A fortune-teller, Awasuke, lived in Fushimi, Kyoto.  He realized life was transient, listened to the sermon of Honen (1133-1212), and became his follower.  Awasuke volunteered to spread the repetition of Namomitabhaya Buddhaya.  Honen granted his wish, had his follower draw his portrait, checked it with his reflection in water, and gave it to Awasuke.

     Awasuke started his enlightenment tour with Honen's portrait.  One day, he arrived at Ukishima Village in Gyotoku.  the village had only 7 families, who were farmers and fishers.  He stayed with Isogai Shinbe, a farmer, and made sermons to the villagers.  Shinbe was impressed with the sermons, and accompanied Awasuke's enlightenment tour in eastern provinces.  After half a year, they arrived at Chuson-ji Temple in Mutsu Province.  Awasuke sat up straight westward in front of Honen's portrait, put both palms together, and passed away.  Following Awasuke's wish, Shinbe toured around Mutsu and Dewa Provinces.  After the tour, Shinbe returned to Ukishima Village, built a hermitage, enshrined Honen's portrait as its main deity, repeated Namomitabhaya Buddhaya, and died at the age of 80 on December 25, 1275.

     Ukishima literally meant Floating Island, which used to be located at today's Koya, which namely means High Valley.  Ryokyoku-ji Temple's sango, Kaichu-zan literally means Mountain in the Sea.  The temple was located at the slightly higher place in the estuary of the Edo River.

     Priest Yokaku changed the hermitage to a temple sometime between 1558 and 1569 and named it Ryokyoku-ji.  In the middle of the 16th century, Takagi Taneyoshi (1501-1565) moved his base from Negiuchi Castle to Kogane Castle, which commanded Edo, Naka, and Ara Rivers.  Accordingly, Taneyoshi controlled the inland waterway between Edo Bay and the northern part of the Kanto Region.  Taneyoshi also owned Gyotoku Saltern, the largest saltworks in the Kanto Region.

     The Tokugawa Shogunate protected Gyotoku Saltern to increase the self-sufficiency rate in the Kanto Region for salt.  They employed a kind of food security policy.  In 1686, they dispatched Priest Yuten (1637-1718) to Ryokyoku-ji Temple to hold a Buddhist memorial service on the 549th anniversary of Honen's death.  Yuten drew a symbolic stupa of a long thin wooden board in memory of Honen.  Yuten was such a well-known psychic that people shaved the stupa, which they believed to be a cure-all.  The leftover of the stupa is still kept in the temple.

Address: 2 Chome-16-4 Koya, Ichikawa, Chiba 272-0013