Virtual Old Kasai 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #28 Senryu-ji Temple

 

     Senryu-ji Temple was founded by Priest Soken at Bamba Village, Katsushika County, Shimousa Province, in 1472.

     The Kyotoku War lasted for 28 years from 1454 to 1482.  During the war, Ashikaga Shigeuji (1438-1497), the Kanto Deputy Shogun in Kamakura, relinquished Kamakura and moved to Koga in 1457.  In 1458, the Muromachi Shogunate in Kyoto sent out another deputy shogun, Ashikaga Masatomo (1435-1491), from Kyoto for Kamakura, but he couldn’t enter Kamakura and stayed in Horikoshi, Izu Province.  From then on, there was a Koga Kanto Deputy Shogun and a Horikoshi Kanto Deputy Shogun in the Kanto Region.  Shigeuji exercised his power in the eastern half of the region; Shimotsuke, Hitachi, Shimousa, Kazusa, and Awa Provinces: while Masatomo was supported by the Uesugi Clan, which hereditarily succeeded to a Regent of the Kanto Deputy Shogunate, in the western half of the region; Kozuke, Musashi, Sagami, and Izu Provinces.  Their main battlefields were in the middle reaches of the Ara, Tone, and Watarase Rivers.

     In 1467, the Onin War broke out in Kyoto, and the central shogunate couldn't support Masatomo, a Horigoshi Kanto Deputy Shogun, any longer.  In March, 1471, seizing opportunity, Shigeuji marched to Horigoshi, only to be defeated.  In May, Nagao Kagenobu (1413-1473), a vassal of the Yamanouchi-Uesugi Family, fought back to Koga.  Shigeuji escaped to Moto-Sakura Castle to be sheltered by Chiba Noritane (1459-1521).  Koga Castle didn't fall, and Shigeuji returned to the castle in 1472, when Senryu-ji Temple was founded in the estuary of the Ara, Tone, and Watarase Rivers, along the front line between the Koga and Horigoshi Kanto Deputy Shoguns.

     In the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, the temple burned down, and was later rebuilt.  In 1928, however, it moved its graveyard to its present place.  In 1945, the temple burned down again in the Bombing of Tokyo, and moved to its present place.

Address: 2 Chome−26−1 Momijigaoka, Fuchu, Tokyo 183-0004

Phone: 042-361-3318