Virtual Adachi Bando 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #24 Shomyo-in Temple

 

     It is unknown when Shomyo-in Temple was founded in Koshikiya Village, Adachi County, Musashi Province.  The village is supposed to have been developed in the Warring States Period in a small valley which resembled a Japanese old-style steamer, koshiki.  Koshiki used to be earthenware or made of wood with a couple of holes at the bottom of it.  We came to use bamboo steamers in the Edo Period (1603-1867).  The temple was abolished in 1871 with its graveyard left.  When the 100-year history of Ageo City was published 1972, Shomyo-in Temple's Kannon-do Hall still remained with the Adachi Bando 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #24 deity, Arya Avalokitesvara, who is the human-figure prototype of the other 6 metamorphoses.  Today, you can hardly find one.

     Shomyo-in Temple's jigo was Saifuku-ji, so it might have been a branch of Saifuku-ji Temple, which used to be a shrine temple of Imaizumi-Hikawa Shrine.  Saifuku-ji Temple was founded in the 1360's.  Saifuku-ji Temple was abolished before Mamiya Kotonobu (1777-1841) compiled the New Topography and Chronology of Musashi Province at the beginning of the 19th century.  People have lived in the Imaizumi area since the Jomon Period.

Address: 505 Koshikiya, Ageo, Saitama 362-0064