Virtual Honjo Domain 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #31 Gokuraku-ji Temple

 

     Torin-ji Temple is located about 1 kilometer southeast from the Honjo Domain 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #30 Tennen-ji Temple.  As the pilgrimage member temples line up from east to west in Hikijimachi, if Gokuraku-ji Temple was located in Hikijimachi, it should have been at the western edge of the town.  If not, the temple could have been somewhere between Tennen-ji Temple and Torin-ji Temple.

     Most of the shrine Buddhist temples were abolished after the Meiji Restoration Government issued the Gods and Buddhas Separation Order in 1868 and they became simply Shinto shrines.  In addition, as we have seen in Hokkaido and Aomori Prefectures, depopulation has caused many temples to be abolished.  It is odd that several temples in the town have been abolished without their Shinto shrines left.  Those temples could have belonged to Shugendo or the Japanese mountain asceticism.  Under the Tokugawa Shogunate, Shugendo wasn’t regarded as an official school or sect of Buddhism.  The Meiji Restoration Government, on the contrary, didn’t consider it to be part of Shinto.   That, anyway, caused many Shugendo temples to be abolished.  Gokuraku-ji Temple could have been one of them.