Virtual Old Akita 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #8 Higashi-Chokai-san Shrine

 

     Mt. Higashi-Chokai rises to the east of Mount Chokai between Omono and Minase Rivers.  It was already a holy place in 801, when Sakanoue Tamuramaro (758-811) carried out his second invasion of the northeastern region.

     In 791, Tamuramaro was dispatched to the eastern provinces to prepare for the war against the foreigners in the northeastern part of Honshu, or today's Tohoku Region.  In 794, he invaded the region, with the military successes of beheading 457 and taking 150 captive.  During the war, he recognized amalgamating local gods into Shinto to be effective.  He founded a shrine on the top of Mt. Higashi-Chokai.  Later, as the syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism progressed, a Thousand-Armed Sahasrabhuja image was enshrined in the shrine.

     When Yodogawa Moritada compiled the Akita Fudoki, the book about the history and culture of Akita, in 1815, he wrote that Higashi-Chokai-san Shrine enshrines Amitabha, Bhaisajyaguru, and Avalokitesvara.  As they were regarded as the original divinities of the gods of Kumano in the syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism, the Avalokitesvara statue might have been enshrined when Kumano mountain ascetics visited the mountain.

     If the Avalokitesvara statue Moritada found is what we find today, it isn't the Avalokitesvara statue Urabe Yasumasa presented.  Where did it go?

Address: Aikawa, Yuzawa, Akita 012-0862