Virtual Aduma 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #24 Fudo-in Temple

 

     Fudo-in Temple was founded in the 18th century.

     In the Western half of the Kanto Plain, Iruma, Ara, Tone, and Watarase Rivers ran south into the Edo Bay.  They sometimes met one another and sometimes branched off, forming a one big estuary at the northern end of the Edo Bay between Edo Castle in the west and Gyotoku in the east.  The rivers formed mudflats, which enabled locals to build salt pans relatively easily.  As the rivers brought more sand and mud, small islands grew bigger, and some mudflats eventually became dry lands.

     By span of decades, once productive salt pans became useless and should have been transferred to rice fields.  Before the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the salt workers in Gyotoku might have moved south by generation, but after its establishment, its control over the population became severe and people were supposed to keep living in the same village.  Salt workers had to change their jobs.

     As alluvium expanded southward, it became impossible to do saltworks in Nekozane village by 1629.  After the middle of the 17th century, its villagers came to depend on fishing.  The conflict over fishery with Funahashi Village became serious and severe.  The conflict caused the death of 3 villagers in the 1780's.

     About a generation later in 1824, a boat of Nekozane Village broke into Funahashi Village's fishing grounds with a banner of the Hitotsubashi Family and a samurai on it.  A Funahashi fisher punched the samurai and snatched the banner.  In the Edo Period, it was a serious crime, and 3 representatives of Funahashi fishers were put in jail.  One died in the jail.  Another was let out barely before his death.  In 1825, the villagers started an annual memorial services for the dead, using commemorating those who were killed in the 1746 storm surge.  On January 28th every year, the villagers piled up rice on the statue of Buddha, remembering how hungry the jailed fishers were.

     Yazu and Saginuma Villages were developed in valleys formed by erosion of Shimousa Plateau.  Their villagers developed rice fields at the bottom of the valleys.  They also developed fields on the plateau, and gathered clams and Japanese littlenecks on mudflats as fishing was monopolized by the Funahashi villagers.  They also joined the heated scramble of fishing grounds.

Address: 3 Chome-4-6 Honcho, Funabashi, Chiba 273-0005

Phone: 047-422-7619