Virtual Adachi Bando 33 Kannon Pilgrimage (the South) #2 Kakushin-ji Temple

 

     In the old days, a Nembutsu-do hall, a hermitage to chant prayer to the Buddha, was built in Harigaya Village, Adachi County, Musashi Province.  After Koriki Kiyonaga (1530-1608) died, his vassal, Nakamura Yoshiteru (?-1622), changed the hermitage into a temple and named it Kakushin-ji after Kiyonaga's posthumous Buddhist name, Kakushin, inviting Priest Manrei (?-1646), who had been born to the Fukai Family.

     Kiyonaga was born in Mikawa Province.  After Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) was taken hostage to the Imagawa Clan in Suruga Province in 1549, Kiyonaga was sent to the province to support Ieyasu in 1552.  After countless ups and downs, Ieyasu became the ruler of the whole nation, and Kiyonaga rose to lord.  If Yoshiteru followed Kiyonaga from Mikawa Province, he had a good reason to build a temple for Kiyonaga.  

     Who were the Fukai Family?

     The Later Three-Year War was fought in the northeastern part of Japan in the late 1080s.  It was a kind of internal strife within the Kiyohara Clan.  First, Kiyohara Iehira (?-1087) and Kiyohira (1056-1128) fought against Sanehira (?-1083).  After Sanehira’s death, Iehira clashed against Kiyohira.  From the central government, Minamoto Yoshiie (1039-1106) intervened in the conflict.  The intervention brought victory to Kiyohira.  In the war, Kamakura Kagemasa fought for Yoshiie brilliantly at the age of 16.  In a battle, Chokai Yosaburo shot Kagemasa’s right eye.  Not wavering, Kagemasa shot Yosaburo back dead.  In Yoshiie’s camp, Kagemasa was suffering with the arrow in his right eye.  His comrade, Miura Tametsugu, ran up to Kagemasa and stepped on his face to pull out the arrow.  Kagemasa got furious and slashed at Tametsugu, saying, “A samurai would be satisfied if he died with an arrow wound.  But it’s humiliation to be stepped on the face.” Later, he developed Oba Manor in Koza County, Sagami Province.  One of his offspring, Kagehiro, lived in Nagao Manor, Kamakura County, Sagami Province, and called his family Nagao.

     On June 5th, 1247, when Miura Yasumura (1184-1247) lost to the Hojo Clan, he and 500 of his family members, relatives, and subjects committed suicide in the Old Kamakura 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #8 Hokke-do Temple.  The Nagao Family was almost completely destroyed in the incident.  A few survived.  When Prince Munetaka (1242-1274) became the 6th Shogun of the Kamakura Shogunate in 1252, the Uesugi Family followed him.  The offspring of the Nagao Family's survivors became subject to the family.

     The Kamakura Shogunate or the dictatorship of the Hojo Clan was destroyed in 1333.  Under the Ashikaga Shogunate in Kyoto, the Kanto Deputy Shogunate was established in 1349, and Uesugi Noriaki (1306-1368) became the first Regent of the Kanto Deputy Shogunate.  That was the start of the Nagao Family's good luck.  As the Uesugi Family spread their power across the Kanto Region, the Nagao Family's branches spread across the region.

     Nagao Kagetaka (?-1533) was born in Fukai Village, Adachi County, Musashi Province, and called his family Fukai.  His son was Kageyoshi, and Kageyoshi's son was Yoshihide (?-1605).  Manrei could have belonged to the next or the next-next generation.

     Kakushin-ji Temple's main deity, a sitting Amitabha statue, which is supposed to have been made at the beginning of the Kamakura Period (1185-1333), used to be enshrined in Osaka castle.  After the Siege of Osaka Castle in 1615, Yoshiteru brought it to the temple.

     Yoshiteru's wife presented a Ksitigarbha image to the temple.

     Its precincts have an itabi dated 1324.  Its original hermitage might have been built in the Kamakura Period (1185-1333).  Was it built when the Nagao Family was almost destroyed in 1247?

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