Virtual Okitama 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #6 Shoho-ji Temple

 

     Priest Doai (?-1379), who was from Yamamoto County, Dewa Province, founded Eitoku-ji Temple in Isawa County, Mutsu Province. 

     Doai, who had aspired to become a Buddhist monk from an early age, attained spiritual attainment at a Shingon sect temple called Hoju-in in Rokugo-Takano Village.  At the age of 16, he went up to Enryaku-ji Temple on Mount Hiei to study the teachings of the Tiantai Sect.  Several years after entering the mountain, he decided to travel around temples of various places.  According to the Nihon Dojo Rento-roku, the Biographies of the Priests of the Caodong Sect, which was compiled by Priest Yujo in 1727, he is said to have converted to the Caodong Sect when he was 24 years old.  He studied under Priest Joseki (1275-1366), the second head priest of the Soji-ji Temple in Wajima, Noto Province.  In 1355, he achieved great enlightenment and  became a Buddhist heir of Joseki, who ordered Doai to preach in the Mutsu and Dewa Provinces.  Doai spread the teachings of the Caodong Sect all over the provinces on the back of an ox.  One day, he stayed in a temple, which had been founded in 1354, and which belonged to the Tiantai Sect, in Tokiniwa Village, Okitama County, Dewa Province.

      Priest Rigen, who was a second son of a branch of the Kasai Family, and who was from Isawa County, was the apprentice of Doai, pilgrimaged in Dewa Province, and founded Jichi-in Temple in Tagawa County, Dewa Province, in 1395.  Presumably in those days, Rigen visited the temple Doai had stayed in to find it in ruins.  He revived the temple and changed it to the Caodong Sect.  As Shoho uses the same Chinese characters with the book Shobo-Ganzo, which was written by Dogen (1200-1253), the founder of Caodong Sect in Japan, the original temple's name might have been different.

Address: 1428 Tokiniwa, Nagai, Yamagata 993-0035

Phone: 0238-84-2876

Jichi-in Temple

Address: 1 Chome-4-38 Hiyoshicho, Sakata, Yamagata 998-0037

Phone: 0234-24-1164

Eitoku-ji Temple

Address: Monzen-1 Nagasakae, Kanegasaki, Isawa District, Iwate 029-4505

Phone: 0197-44-3171