Virtual Adachi Bando 33 Kannon Pilgrimage (the South) #6 Saitai-ji Temple

 

     Saitai-ji Temple is said to have been founded by Ennin (794-864).  Its precincts have the grave of Nun Kenshoin. Who was she?

     Lady Sanjo (1521-1570) was a Japanese noblewoman and was the wife of the warlord, Takeda Harunobu (1521-1573).  She gave birth to 5 children.  Her second daughter married Anayama Nobutada (1541-1582), who went over from the Takeda Clan to the Oda Clan in 1582.  Unluckily for Nobutada, Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) was assassinated in Kyoto on June 2nd, 1582.  Nobutada was killed in the chaotic aftermath of the assassination on the day or a few days later.  Unluckily, Lady Sanjo's second daughter became a war widow and became a Buddhist nun with her Buddhist name Kenshoin.  Many of the leftover samurai of the Takeda Clan became subject to Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616), who allied with Nobunaga but, unlike Nobutada, survived the chaotic aftermath.  Kenshoin also became under the patronage of Ieyasu.

     Hoshina Masayuki (1611-1673) was a love child of Tokugawa Hidetada (1579-1632).  His mother, Shizu (1584-1635), was a daughter of a carpenter and was a lady's maid.  In those days in the Tokugawa Clan, if a lady's maid became pregnant, she needed the lawful wife's permission to become a concubine for the purpose of maintaining the status order.  It was customary for an illegitimate child not to be given birth within Edo Castle.  Shizu gave birth in the house of her sister's husband, Takemura Sukebe in Kanda-Shirogane-cho.  After the spring in 1613, Kenshoin raised the child as a samurai.

     The foundation and Kenshoin's stories might have helped to earn faith.  The precincts have 351 Koshin Stone Monuments, which were based on the Koshin folk faith in Japan. The faith is a mixture of Taoism, Buddhism, and Shinto. According to the faith, "Three Corpses" or "Three Worms" are demonic creatures that live inside the human body, and they seek to hasten the death of their host.  The Koshin monuments were built to prevent their activities.

     Some monuments were built in 1783 and the others were built in 1860.

     Mt. Asama erupted on July 8th, 1783.  Its pyroclastic flows, landslides, volcanic ashes, and the floods of the Azuma River caused by them killed more than 1,400 people in Kozuke Province alone.  Even in Kodama County, Musashi Province, a gigantic quantity of volcanic ashes covered fields so thick that they buried their original shapes and borders.  As the Azuma River is a branch of the Tone River, muddy water flew into the Tone River.

      The volcanic activities had continued for about 3 months.  A large amount of ejecta had accumulated on the mountainside.  They could not withstand the vibrations of the explosion and eruption, and collapsed.  This became a large-scale debris avalanche that rushed toward the north at high speed.  The huge flow sped up and flowed down, gouging out the earth at the foot of the mountain.  It flowed into the Azuma River and became a large mudflow, swallowing villages along the river along with their fields and houses.  It flowed down the river and into the main river, the Tone River.  This caused major flooding in various parts of the Tone River basin.  The Tone River carried all that was washed away downstream, and the mudflow also flowed into the Edogawa River, which was the original mainstream, and many bodies were washed up in the Edogawa River.  The large mudflows flowed down the Tone River, and flowed into the Pacific Ocean the next day.

     From 1858 to 1860, cholera raged.  In Edo, about 280 thousand people are estimated to have died of cholera in 1858 out of its estimated population of 1 million.

Address: 5 Chome-18−9 Higashiurawa, Midori Ward Saitama 336-0926

Phone: 048-873-1520