Virtual Shonai 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #4 Chogen-ji Temple

 

      The 5th priest of Chogon-ji Temple, Soan, built a hermitage in Kariyanome Village, Tagawa County, Dewa Province, in May, 1593.  The village was developed where the road between Tsurugaoka Castle and Mount Haguro crossed Kurose River.  Under the religion policy of the Tokugawa Shogunate, every villager was supposed to belong to an official Buddhist temple.  Presumably, the hermitage was changed into a temple to meet villagers' needs.

     The village had Fukuchi Shrine, which enshrines Goddess Ukanomitama as the divinity of agriculture.  The shrine enshrined Arya Avalokitesvara, who is the human-figure prototype of the other 6 metamorphoses, as Ukanomitama's original divinity.  In other words, they believed Arya Avalokitesvara expressed itself as Ukanomitama in Japan.  As the temple's sango is Fukuchisan, it might have been the shrine temple of Fukuchi Shrine.  After the Meiji Restoration, the Arya Avalokitesvara statue was moved to Chogen-ji Temple.

People's wishes are as deep as the river runs.

It's very reliable for them

That Avalokitesvara promised to relieve everyone.

Address: 32 Takasaka, Kariyanome, Haguromachi, Tsuruoka, Yamagata 997-0163

Phone: 0235-62-2004

Chogon-ji Temple

Address: Shimotamoto-233 Haguromachi Ushiroda, Tsuruoka, Yamagata 997-0157

Phone: 0235-62-2546

Fukuchi Shrine

Address: Minamigawara-146-1 Haguromachi Kariyanome, Tsuruoka, Yamagata 997-0163