Virtual Kesen 33 Kannon Pigrimage #2 Kongo-ji Temple

 

     According to local tradition, Oe Chisato was either shunted or exiled to Kesen County.  As Priest Yuban prayed for Chisato's return to Kyoto, the prayer was answered in 888.  Chisato founded Kongo-ji Temple for the priest. 

     Oe Chisato was a Japanese tanka poet and Confucian scholar in the late 9th and early 10th centuries.  His exact birth and death dates are unknown but his appointments were documented from 883 to 903.  In 883, he was appointed to be an officer of Bicchu Province.  In 897, he was promoted.  So, it is possible he was either shunted or exiled for a short while.

     He seems to have been favored as a tanka poet by Emperor Uda (867-931), who reigned from 887 to 897.  His 25 tanka poems were adopted in the chokusen wakashu, imperially-commissioned Japanese anthologies of tanka poetry:

When I looked at the moon in Autumn,

My heart is broken into a thousand pieces.

The moon isn't owned by me alone.

     On March 11th, 2011, the temple was hit by the tsunami caused by the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake.  The temple's main deity, the image of Cintamanicakra, who usually has 6 arms and holds chintamani (a wish-fulfilling jewel) in one of the six, was later found in mud and enshrined in Enjo-ji Temple.

     Will the moon be owned by a single dictator in the near future?

Address: Machiura-29 Kesencho, Rikuzentakata, Iwate 029-2204

Phone: 0192-55-3662

Enjo-ji Temple

Address: Atagoshita-7 Yahagicho, Rikuzentakata, Iwate 029-2201

Phone: 0192-58-2323