Virtual Musashino 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #25 Ensen-ji Temple

 

     Ensen-ji Temple was founded by Priest Keishu in Hiramatsu Village, Koma County, Musashi Province, sometime between 1716 and 1735, as the village was developed at the foot of a hill on which the Moomin Valley Park is located today.

     Bad weather started at the end of 1731.  In 1732, the rainy season lasted for 2 months, and that caused a cold summer.  Harmful planthoppers bred on rice plants.  In 46 domains, their rice harvest was reduced to 27 percent of normal yields.  969,900 people died of hunger.  In the Kanto Region, tax increases imposed by Tokugawa Yoshimune (1684-1751) had weakened the resilience of peasants.  In 1733, the price of rice soared in Edo.  1,700 people assaulted the building of Takama Denbe, a rice dealer, and threw his household goods and straw bags in a river.  After the famine, Aoki Kon’yo (1698-1769) devised planting sweet potatoes as famine food.  He was nicknamed Dr. Sweet Potato.

     Ensen-ji Temple’s precincts have Myoken Shrine, in which Sudrsti is enshrined.  Sudrsti was the deity of the deification of the northern pole star and/or the Big Dipper.  Tradition says that the Sudrsti statue was brought from Kyoto by Taira Masakado (903-940), who was a hero in the Kanto Region and was a villain in Kyoto.  When Masakado was defeated, Watanuki Toyohachi, Masakado’s vassal, hid himself in Hiramatsu Village, concealed the statue, and prayed to it at home.  Generations later, Watanuki Isuke obtained approval to enshrine the statue in the precincts of Ensen-ji Temple in 1847.

     Ensen-ji Temple is also the #3 member of the Koma 33 Kannon Pilgrimage.

Address: 376 Hiramatsu, Hanno, Saitama 357-0014

Phone: 042-973-5716

Moomin Valley Park

Address: 327-6 Miyazawa, Hanno, Saitama 357-0001