Virtual Yamanote 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #9 Shin-Chokoku-ji Temple

 

     From 793 to 803, Kukai (774-835) frequently visited the countryside and faraway temples to practice asceticism.  His footsteps are hardly known, but some believe he visited the Three Mountains in Dewa and that he carved the Acalanatha statue there.  The statue was believed to have been passed to a villager of Sekiguchi, Musashi Province, and was enshrined in a temple there.

     Priest Shusan (1572-1641) was ordered by Tokugawa Hidetada (1579-1632), the second Shogun, to carve the same eleven-faced Ekadasamukha statue with the one in Hase-dera Temple in Nara, and to revived the temple in Sekiguchi Village.  Shusan renamed the temple, Shin-Chokoku-ji.  Chokoku is another pronunciation of Hase.

     In Komai-cho, Sekiguchi, there used to be a Shin-Chokoku-ji Temple, which enshrined an Acalanatha statue. 

     Edo Meisho Zue, or the Guide to Famous Edo Sites, was an illustrated guidebook for famous places in Edo, and was published in 1834.  The guidebook depicted Shin-Chokoku-ji Temple as follows, "At the foot of Shin-Chokoku-ji Temple, there is a weir, from which the stream gurgles and babbles night and day.  The temple commands the view of the stream, hamlets in Waseda, and woods in Takada.  It's impressively  scenic.  The precincts have restaurants and all of them face the stream."

     Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604-1651) chose it as one of 5-colored Acalanatha statues: Black-eyed, Yellow-eyed, Red-eyed, Blue-eyed, and White-eyed Acalanatha statues.  The one in Shin-Chokoku-ji Temple was White-eyed, or Mejiro in Japanese.  The place name, Mejiro, was after the statue's name.  Shin-Chokoku-ji Temple burned down in May, 1945, and was merged with Konjo-in Temple after World War II.  The White-Eyed Acalanatha statue is enshrined in Konjo-in Temple today. 

     According to tradition, Priest Tenkai (1536-1643), a religious advisor to Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), placed five protective Acalanatha statues at strategic points on the outskirts of Edo in the early 17th century to religiously protect the new capital of the Tokugawa Shogunate, based on the Chinese Wuxing (or Five Phases) philosophy. The Five Phases are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water.  Each of them corresponds to the colors of Blue, Red, Yellow, White, and Black respectively.  Accordingly, they had Blue-eyed, Red-eyed, Yellow-eyed, White-eyed, and Black-eyed Acalanatha statues.  They were so popular that White-eyed (Mejiro In Japanese) and Black-eyed (Meguro in Japanese) even became place names.  It's an urban legend, and 2 temples insist they enshrine Yellow-eyed Acalanatha.

Blue-eyed Acalanatha is enshrined in Saisho-ji Temple in Taishidol; Red-eyed Acalanatha is enshrined in Nankoku-ji Temple; Yellow-eyed Acalanatha is enshrined in Eikyu-ji Temple and/or in Saisho-ji Temple in Hirai; White-eyed Acalanatha used to be enshrined in Shin-Chokoku-ji Temple and is now enshrined in Konjo-in Temple; and Black eyed Acalanatha is enshrined in Ryusen-ji Temple.

     Shin Chokoku-ji Temple is also the #16 member temple of the Modeern Edo 33 Kannon Pilgrimage.

Konjo-in Temple

Address: 2 Chome-12-39 Takada, Toshima City, Tokyo 171-0033

Phone: 03-3971-1654