Virtual Musashino 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #1 Chomei-ji Temple

 

     The Masushima Family lived in Yawara Hamlet, Shakujii Village, Toshima County, Musashi Province.  People lived in the Shakujii area even in the Old Stone Age.  The area was occupied by the Toshima Family in 1349.  In 1477, Shakujii Village was ruled by the Ota Family under the Later Hojo Clan.  As Masushima literally means Added Plot, the Masushima Family might have developed a plot in the Shakujii area.  The Later Hojo Clan collapsed in 1590, and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616) moved into the Kanto Region.  Masushima Shigetasu (?-1682) became a vassal of the Tokugawa Shogunate and worked for the accountancy office.

     The Masushima Family felt like decorating their family tree.

     When the Later Hojo Clan was defeated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598) in 1590, some of the Later Hojo Clan's members were sent to Mt. Koya to confine themselves there: Ujinao (1562-1591), Naosada, Ujinori (1545-1600), Ujitada (?1593), Ujitaka (?-1609), and Ujimitsu (?-1590).  Some of their vassals, including Shigetatsu’s granduncle, to support their confined life.  Some clan members died there and the others were released.  The granduncle returned to his homeland with a copy of the image of Kukai (774-835) in 1613.  He enshrined the image in his hermitage.  To follow the Tokugawa Shogunate's policy that every citizen should belong to an official Buddhist temple, the granduncle's nephew founded a temple with Keisan (?-1616) as its 1st priest and asked Priest Shusan of Hase-dera Temple in Yamato Province to name the temple.  The priest named it Chomei-mitsu-ji in 1640.  In 1648, the temple was authorized by the shogunate.  The nephew's son was Shigetatsu.  To decorate their family tree, Shigetasu first gave his granduncle a good-lineage-samurai-like name Shigeaki.  Shigeaki's nephew, who was Shigetasu's father, was named Shigetoshi.  Even Shigetoshi's father was named Shigekuni, and Shigekuni's father Shigetane.  Shigetasu even claimed Shigetane was the illegitimate child of Ise Shinkuro (1432-1519), the founder of the Later Hojo Clan, and that his granduncle practiced Shingon Buddhism in Mt. Koya.   To support the latter idea, he had the temple shaped like Mt. Koya: with the granduncle's hermitage as the Great Master's Hall in Mt. Koya, his father's temple as the Main Hall of Mt. Koya, and his family's graves as Okunoin Cemetery Path.

     Shigetasu's first idea didn't work.  Many samurai, no matter if they were high-ranking or low-ranking, decorated their family trees, and Shigetatsu's decoration of his family tree didn't enable the Masushima Family to achieve any significant success as a vassal of the Tokugawa Shogunate.  His second idea, however, worked!  As Edo flourished as a practical capital of Japan, its citizens enjoyed tourism, especially pilgrimage tourism.  Chomei-ji Temple became very popular, and they called the temple East-Koya or New-Koya.

     Chomei-ji Temple enshrines Eleven-Faced Ekadasamukha.

Address: 3 Chome-10-3 Takanodai, Nerima City, Tokyo 177-0033

Phone: 03-3996-0056