Virtual Old Mutsu 33 Kannon Pigrimage #24 Tendo-an Hermitage

 

     Tendo-an Hermitage was founded as a branch of Zuigan-ji Temple, which has Godai-do Hall.  It used to be located where the Three Views of Japan Observatory is.  It is said that the priests of Tendo-an Hermitage took care of the hall.  After the Meiji Restoration, the hermitage was lost and nothing more is known.  The hall is said to have been founded in 807 to enshrine Vaisravana.  The hermitage could have been as old as the hall and might have enshrined Thousand-Armed Sahasrabhuja.

     Godai-do Hall or Matsushima at large could have been a strategic point along  the military traffic between Taga Castle and Kitakami River.  Although they imported a station system from China, water transportation was still strategically as important for them as for their ancestors, who invaded the Japanese Archipelago from west to east like the Vikings.

     Ugaya, whose ancestors had come from somewhere else which got called Takamagahara later, was ruling Hyuga Province in the eastern coast of Kyushu Island.  He had been abandoned by his mother in his infancy, and raised by his aunt, his mother’s younger sister.  When he came of age, he married the aunt, and had 4 sons, Itsuse, Inahi, Mikenu, and Sano.

     Inahi drowned himself in the sea to see his mother.  Mikenu left eastward, that is, to the sea, for the land of the dead.  Itsuse left northward with his youngest brother, Sano.  The reason for the family breakdown is unknown and unknowable now.

     Itsuse first arrived ash Usa in Buzen Province, and stayed at another place in the province for a year.  He moved eastward along the Seto Inland sea to Aki Province, and stayed there for 7 years.  And then to Kibi Province, and stayed there for 3 to 8 years.  He finally reached the eastern end of the Seto Inland sea only to be faced by Nagasune, who was hostile against him.  Itsuse was shot, flew, got to O Port in Ki Province, and died there.  He was buried in Mt. Kama near the port.

     Itsuse’s younger brother, Sano, continued their eastward quest, and arrived at Kumano in the province.  Tempted by a local tribe, who had the token of a crow with 3 legs, he went upstream along Totsu river, crossed Yoshino River, beat his way through the bush, and reached Uda in Yamato Province.

     The 3-legged-crow tribe helped Sano rival other local tribes there, and successfully split one tribe.  Sano’s men committed an underhanded murder of another local tribe.  Sano also maneuvered pork-barrel politics against other tribes, and established his ruling in Iware.  He was later called Iware, related to his domain name.  Until the end of World War II, the series of events was widely believed in Japan to have taken place more than 2 millennia before.

Sano’s descendants eventually unified Yamato Province.  They even further continued the brothers’ eastward quest.  After Kumano, they reached Ise.  They built their advanced base at the southern end of the Ise Plains.  The base was Ise Shrine.  Next, they invaded Nobi Plains, and built another advanced base at the mouth of a river in Owari Province.  The base was Atsuta Shrine.  They moved further east, got to an inland sea at the eastern end of the Kanto Plains, and built another advanced base at the southern shore of the sea.  The base was Katori Shrine.  Across the inland sea, at the northern shore, they also prepared another advanced logistics base to invade Northern Japan.  The base was Kashima Shrine.

     They further advanced north and built Taga Castle, which might have sounded more modern to them, to invade Sendai Plain.

Three Views of Japan Observatory

Address: Chonai-115 Matsushima, Miyagi District, Miyagi 981-0213

Zuigan-ji Temple

Address: Chonai-91 Matsushima, Miyagi District, Miyagi 981-0213

Phone: 022-354-2023

Godai-do Hall

Address: Chonai-111 Matsushima, Miyagi District, Miyagi 981-0213

Phone: 022-354-2023