Virtual Yamanote 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #32 Shinpo-ji Temple

 

     Shinpo-ji Temple was founded in Mikawa Province sometime between 593 and 628, when Empress Nukatabe (554-628) reigned.  When Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616) moved to Edo in 1590, Priest Shozan followed him.

     One day, Shozan thought of returning to Mikawa Province, but Ieyasu persuaded him to stay on.  Ieyasu tried to give him large land, but he turned down the offer, saying, “If a monk got enough clothes and food, he would be too lazy to serve Buddha.”  Instead, he founded another Shinpo-ji Temple in Kojimachi because he would like it to be a temple with a relaxed atmosphere for the townspeople who had moved to Edo.  He declined samurai to become the temple’s supporting member.

     In 1838, a fire broke out of Shinpo-ji Temple and spread around Kojimachi.  The temple received a building of the residence of the Owari Domain sold off in 1840, and was revived in 1847.  The building was burned down in the Bombing of Tokyo in 1944 and 1945.

     The wooden Amitabha sitting statue of the temple is 109 centimeters tall and is supposed to have been made sometime between the end of the 12th century and the first quarter of the 13th century.  That big and that old wooden Buddhist images are very rare in Tokyo.

Address: 6 Chome-4-2 Kojimachi, Chiyoda City, Tokyo 102-0083

Phone: 03-3261-2104