Virtual Adachi Bando 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #23 Kannon-in Temple

 

     It is unknown when Kannon-in Temple was founded in Hinotsume Village, Adachi County, Musashi Province.  It is also unknown if it was really a temple.  Some say its main deity was Cundi, who has 16 arms and appears to be female, and others say its main deity was Arya Avalokitesvara, who is the human-figure prototype of the other 6 metamorphoses.  The answer is unknowable as the Buddhist image has been stolen.

     The Hinotsume area used to be a part of Kawataya Village until the 1640's.  The area was developed by the Nagashima Family alone.  They invited Hikawa Shrine.  Kannon-in Temple might have been its shrine temple.  The area was recorded as an independent village in 1702.  When Mamiya Kotonobu (1777-1841) compiled the New Topography and Chronology of Musashi Province at the beginning of the 19th century, Hinotsume Village had 33 families.

     The Kumanojinja Burial Mound is a circular burial mound, measuring 40 meters in diameter, 6 meters in height and with a moat 13 meters in width.  Judging from the excavated items, it is estimated to have been built around the 4th century.  The number of excavated items is large, and many of them are extremely rare in eastern Japan, and they have similarities to those found in the Kansai Region.  So, the person who was buried might have come from the central part of Japan to an island in the Old Greater Tokyo Bay to build a bridgehead or a beachhead to invade the Kanto Region.  It seems the ruling classes in central Japan were busy sending their troops to the east and the west in those days.

     According to the Gwanggaeto Stele, which is a memorial stele for the tomb of Gwanggaeto the Great (374-412) of Goguryeo, erected in 414 by his son Jangsu (394-491):

     In 399, Baekje broke previous promise and allied with Wa. Gwanggaeto advanced to Pyongyang. There he saw Silla's messenger who told him that many Wa troops were crossing the border to invade and make Silla's king a vassal of Wa, and so asked Goguryeo for help. As Silla swore to be Goguryeo's subject, the King agreed to save them.

     In 400, the King sent 50,000 troops to save Silla. Wa's troops retreated just before the Goguryeo troops reached the Silla capital. They chased the Wa forces to a castle in Imna Gaya.  The Wa troops in the castle soon surrendered.

     In 404, Wa unexpectedly invaded the southern border at Daifang.  The King led troops from Pyongyang to prevail. Wa troops collapsed with enormous casualties.

     Just to the north of Shimousa Province, there used to lie an orifice of a big inland sea, Katori Sea.  On the peninsula between Katori Sea and the Pacific Ocean, there stood Kashima Shrine.  On the southern coast of Katori Sea, there stood Katori Shrine.

Kashima Shrine was officially considered and actually worked as the gateway to invade the Tohoku Region, the northeastern part of Honshu, which was later called Mutsu Province, or to subdue and rule Emishi, who were not subject to the imperial central government.

Katori Shrine used to be the gateway to the Kanto Plain, and governed the water transportation on Katori Sea.  Scatters of medieval documents suggest that the shrine even put up some checkpoints along the rivers and collected tolls and taxes, which, in Western Japan, pirates along the Seto Inland Sea did.  That is, Katori Shrine used to be a semi-governmental pirate.  It has always been difficult to draw the line between state-run navies and private pirates.

     Kashima Shrine is supposed to have been founded by the end of the 8th century, about 4 centuries after the building of Kumanojinja Burial Mound.  In other words, it took the Japanese rulers about 4 centuries to network their bridgeheads and beachheads and to choose one to be their stronghold in the Kanto Plain.

Address: 17 Kawataya, Okegawa, Saitama 363-0027

Hinotsume-Hikawa Shrine

Address: 215 Kawataya, Okegawa, Saitama 363-0027

Kumanojinja Burial Mound

Address: 348 Kawataya, Okegawa, Saitama 363-0027