Virtual Shonai 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #6 Kosho-ji Temple

 

     In the Shonai area, people believed that the souls of the dead stayed in a nearby grove for a while.  They visited their nearby groves with flowers and offerings for the repose of both the related and unrelated souls.  After the souls were purified and cleansed in the groves, they went up higher into Mt. Haguro, Mt. Gassan, or Mt. Yudono, and calmed down.

     The hill behind Kosho-ji Temple is known as the second most famous grove of that kind.

     Priest Juho claimed that he was led by an albino fox with a golden tail to the hill, and founded the temple there in 861.  As a fox is known as an errand or a messenger of Inari Shrine, he built Inari Shrine as the temple's sanctuary.  As a result, the temple exceptionally preserves its style of the syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism even after the Meiji Restoration: Countless red gateways lead you from the Buddhist main hall to the Shinto shrine where Dakini is enshrined.

     The priest had his own Eleven-Faced Ekadasamukha image enshrined in the main hall, and enshrined Sarasvati in addition for some reason.

Stars and the moon light the temple

Where you shall clearly see

the teachings and enlightenment of Buddhism.

     Juho could have brought Buddhism and Shinto to the area where its indigenous people might have had their own religion.

     It is unknown what the priest said implied whether foxes actually lived in the hill or the people with a fox as their totem lived there.  It is supposed to have been in those days, the 9th century,  when Dewa was still pronounced Ideha, that the population in the area increased and Tagawa and Akumi Counties were established.  In 721, Ideha Province had been separated from Echigo Province, which itself had been separated from Koshi Province in 697.

Address: Nakazato-47 Mikazawa, Shonai, Higashitagawa District, Yamagata 999-6602

Phone: 0234-56-2533

Kasuga Shrine

Address: Miyanoshita-271 Kurokawa, Tsuruoka, Yamagata 997-0311

Phone: 0235-57-3019