Virtual Musashino 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #30 Fukutoku-ji Temple

 

     Fukutoku-ji Temple was founded by Priest Hozan (?-1231) in 1212 in Agana Village, Koma County, Musashi Province, in the upper reaches of the Koma Rive, which merges into the Oppe River, which in turn merges into the Ara River.

     In 1185, Minamoto Yoritomo (1147-1199) established the Kamakura Shogunate, the government by the samurai, for the samurai, and of the samurai.  Even after the establishment of the shogunate, however, the land system remained dependent on the manor system.  Utilizing the manor system, and seizing the ownership of manors from aristocrats, the samurai class expanded their power and grew into a new ruling class.  On the other hand, they cultivated the back countries of the eastern provinces with their own hands.

     It has been said that there was no large-scale development in medieval society before the Edo Period.  The evidence for the stagnation of development in the Middle Ages has been based on the number of each province's lands described in the Wamyo Ruijusho (namely Japanese Names for Things Classified and Annotated),  which was a Japanese dictionary compiled in 938, and in the Shugaisho (literally Collection of Trivia), compiled from the 13th century to the 14th century.  According to the 2 materials, in the approximately 400 years from the 10th century to the 14th century, the area of rice fields increased by only 100,000 hectares.  In the 1st century in the Edo Period, the area of rice fields increased by 1.5 million hectares.  Shugaisho, however, was compiled by aristocrats and thus only totaled the rice fields aristocracy could know.  Those developed by samurai were excluded.  Furthermore, it does not include non-rice farmlands at all.

     Lt has recently become clear that the late Heian and Kamakura Periods were the era of great cultivation by the local samurai although the large alluvial plains in the Kanto region were still sparsely populated and large rivers' flooding was still uncontrollable, making it difficult to develop them with the technology and capital available at the time.

     The samurai in the Kanto Region carried out the development in two forms: large-scale development by high-ranking samurai and small-scale development by half-farmer samurai. 

     In the 8th century, rice fields were rezoned by the unit of 11,881 square meters.  Horizontal 6 units were called Jo, and vertical 6 units were called Ri.  Accordingly, the rezoning system was called the Jori system.  As ancien regime broke down, many peasants escaped from the Jori-system areas to throw off the yoke of ancient slavery.  "Public" rice fields were devastated and were wasted.  Provincial governments were in a financial crisis.  Some provincial officers and officials became samurai and some local samurai became locally hired provincial officials.  They both appropriated the devastated "public" fields as theirs and redeveloped the fields.  That was the former type of development.  The latter type was carried out by village communities.  They built and maintained irrigation facilities such as ponds.

     The areas that had not been used as rice fields, such as slightly elevated areas such as natural embankments, became rice fields.  Some rice fields were developed in the mountains.

     In this way, alluvial fans, river terraces, and tips of deltas, which had been untouched in ancient times, were reclaimed.  The development of the Kanto Region during the Kamakura period is particularly notable.

     The foundation of Fukutoku-ji Temple could have been supported by the development of rice fields in Agana Village.

     The village's main industry was, however, forestry.

     Ina Tadaharu (1592-1653) made the Ara River flow west into the Iruma River in 1629.  It means the Ara River started running closer to Edo.  That made it easier for Agana Village to provide logs to Edo.  As the Ara River's watercourse moved west, the logs provided from the river were called Nishikawa-zai, namely West River Wood.  As the town of Edo grew, and as it experienced big fires, the forestry in the area grew and its population increased.  Several hamlets became independent villages, and Koshu Village was one of them.

     The village's prosperity even supported Chiba Toshitane (1713-1789) in his studying astronomy.  He studied under Nakane Genkei (1662-1733) and Koda Chikamitsu (1692-1758).  Toshitane mainly studied eclipses of the sun and the moon.  His chief work is Shoku-san Kappo-ritsu, or the Calculation to Predict Eclipses.

Koshu has a rock named Tenmon-iwa, from which Tadaharu made astronomy observations.

Address: 71 Koshu, Hanno, Saitama 357-0204

Phone: 042-978-1272

Tenmon-iwa (Astronomy Rock)

Address: 185 Koshu, Hanno, Saitama 357-0204