Virtual Shonai 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #33 Shoryu-ji Temple

 

     Mount Kinbo, which used to be called Mount Kin or Mount Chin, was a holy place for northern foreigners since prehistoric days.  Sometime between 806 and 810, a shrine building was built at the top of the mountain.  The mountain was named so because its earth has plenty of golden phlogopite.

     In the 8th and 9th centuries, Shinto gods/godesses syncretized with Buddhas, and many shrines came to have their shrine temples.  Seiryu-ji Temple might have been founded on one of those days at the south-east foot of Mt. Kinbo.

     Some Buddhists regarded the mountain Amitabha and other peaks lotus flowers, and called the mountain Lotus Flower Mountain or Eight-Leaved Mountain.

     Tanbanokami Morimune of Uda County, Yamato Province, was dispatched to Dewa Province from 1077 to 1081, and he renamed the mountain and the shrine Kinbo after Mt. Kinbu in Yoshino, Yamato Province.

At the end or my pilgrimage,

I climb up the gold mountain

To be part of its lotus-shaped pedestal.

Address: Kinbo 6 Shoryuji, Tsuruoka, Yamagata 997-0368

Phone: 0235-24-0211