Virtual Edo Bando 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #16 Joju-in Temple

 

     Joju-in Temple was founded by Priest Kan'yu (?-1628) in Yanokura, Asakusa.  The temple was moved to its present place sometime between 1658 and 1661.  Presumably, it burned down in the 1657 Meireki Great Fire, which burned 60-70 percent of Edo and killed 30-100 thousand people.  In Asakusa alone, rivers and canals were packed with 23,000 bodies.  After the fire, Edo was not only rehabilitated.  New city planning was drawn up.  Due to the new planning, Joju-in Temple was moved, and 100 Avalokiteshvara statues, the copies of the deities of the Saigoku, 33 Kannon Pilgrimage, the Bando 33 Kannon Pilgrimage, and the Chichibu 34 Kannon Pilgrimage, were installed to its precincts to pray for the comfort of the fire casualties in the other world.

     In the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, 212 thousand houses and buildings were burned down and more than 105 thousand people were killed.  In the Operation Meetinghouse of World War II, approximately 4,090 hectares of Tokyo were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died.  Joju-in Temple burned in the fires and lost its 100 Avalokiteshvara statues.  In place of the 100 Avalokiteshvara statues, an Arya Avalokitesvara, who is the human-figure prototype of the other 6 metamorphoses, was built in 1990.

Address: 4 Chome-8-12 Motoasakusa, Taito City, Tokyo 111-0041

Phone: 03-3841-3632