Virtual Adachi Bando 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #14 Fukai-ji Temple

 

     A long time ago, there was a big tree called the King of the Forest, and people used to make offerings to escape the troubles of the King.  If people stopped offering, a curse would inevitably occur.  People trembled with fear.  One day, a stork flew in, built a nest in the branch of this tree, laid eggs, and began to raise them.  Then a giant snake appeared and tried to swallow the eggs.  In response, the stork boldly challenged the snake and repulsed it.  After that, the King no longer caused harm.  People built a shrine near the tree and called it Konosu Myojin, namely Stork Nest God, and the area came to be called Konosu.

     In cases like this in Japan, people with a totem of stork came to the area, cut big trees, developed the area, and liberated tree people.  Or ruled them?  Even today, liberation is a metaphor of invasion and occupation.  Anyway, the holy place came to be called Miyachi, namely Shrine Land.

     Later, Konosu people invited other gods one after another as they liked, instead of advancing their totem, stork, to the divinity: an irrigation god from Hikawa, an anti-thunderstorm god from Raiden, a mountain god from Hie, a Tokugawa Ieyasu from Tosho-gu, a business god from Inari, and a samurai god from Yawata Shrines.  Kageyoshi, for example, made a pilgrimage to Kumano Shrines in Kii Province, brought back their earth and sand, and buried them in Konosu, founding another Kumano Shrine.  They all enshrined those gods in their own lands.  Besides gods, a Fukai Family invited Eleven-Faced Ekadasamukha to their land in Miyachi.  After the Meiji Restoration, all the gods in Konosu were brought together into Ko Shrine.  What happened to Ekadasamukha in Miyachi?  Nobody knows.  It has gone with Fukai-ji Temple, if it had been really a temple.

Address: 3 Chome-3-69 Miyaji, Konosu, Saitama 365-0075

Ko Shrine

Address: 1-9 Honmiyacho, Konosu, Saitama 365-0076

Phone: 048-542-7293