Virtual New Mutsu 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #18 Dokei-ji Temple

 

     Moro Shiga built a hall and enshrined the statue of Cintamanicakra, who usually has 6 arms and holds chintamani (a wish-fulfilling jewel) in one of the six, sometime between 729 and 749 in the area which was later called Kannonmori, literally Kannon Woods after the statue.

     The Moro Family could have been from Moro Village, Yuki County, Shimousa Province.  The village was listed in the Wamyo Ruijusho, namely Japanese Names for Things Classified and Annotated, which was a Japanese dictionary compiled in 938, and which listed Japanese place names from south to north.

     In the Edo Period, the hall and statue was moved to the precincts of Horyu Shrine.

     Horyu Shrine is rather new.  Sometime between 1357 and 1368, Shinto Priest Keiei prayed for rain, and 8 thunder gods, Yakusanoikazuchi, came down.  Yakusanoikazuchi include O-ikazuchi (Great thunder), Hono-ikazuchi (Fire thunder), Kuro-ikazuchi (Black thunder), Saku-ikazuchi (Cleaving thunder), Waka-ikazuchi (Young thunder), Tsuchi-ikazuchi (Earth thunder), Naru-ikazuchi (Rumbling thunder), and Fuchi-ikazuchi (Couchant thunder).

     The hall and the statue belonged to Dokei-ji Temple, but they were moved to its present place by the Minagawa Family in 1808.  Since then, they have been taken care of by the offspring of the Minagawa Family.

     It is unknown whether the separation of the Kannon-do hall from Horyu Shrine was influenced by Kokugaku or not.  Kokugaku was an academic movement to refocus Japanese scholarship away from the then-dominant study of Chinese, Confucian, and Buddhist texts.  The movement led to the political movement to "revere the Emperor and expel the barbarians" at the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

     Hanawa Hokiichi (1746-1821), who was a blind scholar of Japanese philology and philosophy, for example, compiled Gunsho Ruiju, or Books Grouped according to Genre, which is a collection of old Japanese books on Japanese literature and history.  He also founded The Wagaku Kodan-sho, Institute of Lectures of Japanese Classics, which was a major educational and research institute in Edo focusing on Japanese classics and Japanese history.

Address: Isonosawa-20 Hanaizumicho Oimatsu, Ichinoseki, Iwate 029-3103

Phone: 0191-82-5296

 Horyu Shrine

Address: Tatehira-50 Hanaizumicho, Ichinoseki, Iwate 029-3103