Virtual Yamanote 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #13 Tofuku-in Temple

 

     There used to be a Tofuku-in Temple in Shimo-Totsuka Village, Toshima County, Musashi Province.  Even today, we have Shimo-Totsuka Hill in Wakamatsu-cho, Shinjuku City, Tokyo 162-0056.  On the hillside, there were several samurai residences, with the Owari Domain's second residence on the top of the hill, and there were several temples at the foot of the hill.  Tofuku-in Temple might have been one of them.  It is unknown when it was founded and when it was abolished, but its foundation and abolishment might have had something to do with why the area was called Totsuka.

     The area had 10 ancient burial mounds, and was called Tosuka, namely Ten Mounds.  The largest mound had its entrance part square and its backward part round.  The area might have been a holy place since ancient times.  In 941, a year after his triumph against Taira Masakado (?-940), Tawara Tota founded an Inari Shrine near the mound.  The shrine was called Totsuka-Inari Shrine.

     In 1501, Uesugi Tomoyoshi (1473-1518), the head of the Ogigayatsu-Uesugi Family, dreamed of a fox, which said it came from Totsuka.  He ordered his vassal to search for the shrine, and the vassal found Totsuka-Inari Shrine.  Tomoyoshi revived the shrine, but was defeated by his rival, Uesugi Akisada (1454-1510), the head of Yamanouchi-Uesugi Family, in 1504.

     In 1702, a spring gushed out in the shrine’s precincts.  The spring was believed to be good for eye diseases, and the shrine came to be called Mizu-Inari.  Mizu means water. 

Edo townspeople loved and worshiped Mt. Fuji, and they built many miniatures of the mountain in the city.  In 1780, a miniature of Mt. Fuji was built on the square part of the Totsuka Mound as the oldest and the largest among those built in Edo.

     The temple must have experienced earthquakes, fires, and typhoons in the Edo Period.  Did it survive the movements to abolish Buddhism and destroy Siddhattha after the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate?  If it did, it must have experienced the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. 

     On May 24th, 525 Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombed the western part of Tokyo, killed 762 people, and burned 65 thousand houses.  On 25th, another 470 bombed the area, killed 3651, and burned 166 thousand.  Mizu-Inari Shrine was burned down on either day, and the spring stopped. 

     When Waseda University enlarged its campus in 1963, it exchanged the lot of Mizu-Inari Shrine with the lot the university owned, where Mizu-Inari Shrine is located today.

     Tofuku-in Temple could have been abolished in one of these trends of the times.

Mizu-Inari Shrine

Address:  3 Chome−5 Nishiwaseda, Shinjuku City, Tokyo 169-0051