Virtual Akata 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #22 Hakusan Shrine

 

     It is unknown when Hakusan Shrine was founded on the right bank of Akata River, where a small mountain stream meets the river.

     Over 2,000 Hakusan Shrines are in Japan and they are supposed to be branches of Shirayama Hime Jinja Shrine, whose object of worship is Mount Haku, which was believed to have been religiously opened by Priest Taicho (682-767).

     Taicho was born in Asozu (namely Aso Port) in Echizen Province as the second son of Mikami Yasuzumi, the head of a local powerful family. The Mikami Family ran the water transportation along the Hino River.  Taicho-ji Temple in Fukui still has a well whose water is said to have been used for Taicho's first bath.  Taicho became a Buddhist monk at the age of 14, with his first Buddhist name Hocho.  He climbed Mt. Ochi and trained by praying to Eleven-Faced Ekadasamukha.  In 702, he was appointed by Emperor Karu (683-707) as a priest of the protection of the nation, and founded Toyohara-ji Temple in Sakai County, Echizen Province.  After that, He climbed Mount Haku in Kaga Province in 717 and sensed Bodhisattva there.  He is said to be the first person to reach the top of Mount Haku, and was the pioneer of mountain asceticism there.  In the same year, he founded Heisen-ji Temple in Ono County, Echizen Province.  In 719, he left Echizen Province and carried out Buddhist missionary work in various provinces presumably to spread mountain asceticism by organizing spontaneous local mountain worship.  He is believed to have visited Chichibu and founded Hosen-ji Temple.

     In 722, he prayed for the recovery from illness of Empress Hidaka (680748). It is said that, due to his success in resolving the epidemic of smallpox in 737, he was given an archbishop title, and changed his name to Taicho.

     The question is when Goddess Shirayama-hime was invited to the Akata Valley.

     The earliest possible invitation was in the 8th century.  In 709, Ideha County was established at the northern end of Koshi Province.  Ideha Fortress was supposedly built around that time at the estuary of Mogami River.  Ideha County was separated from Koshi Province and was promoted to province in 712.  Afterwards, more than 800 farmer soldiers were immigrated from Koshi Province and some eastern provinces.  The Imperial Court continued to expand the area where the county system was implemented, relying on migrated farmer-soldiers.  In 733, Ideha Fortress was relocated north, or advanced, to Akita at the estuary of Omono River at about 100 kilometers from its original place.  Some of the farmer soldiers from Koshi Province in those days immigrated to the Akata Valley with Shirayama-hime.  Kaga Province itself was organized on March 1st, 823.

     Akata's ta means rice fields.  Hakusan Shrine could have been invited when rice fields were developed in the valley.  Perhaps, rice cultivation started in the valley in the Warring States Period (1457-1568), when rice became an important munition food.  If so, anybody from a couple of thousand places with Hakusan Shrine could have immigrated with their skills to grow rice.

     On the wall inside the hall of Hakusan Shrine, you find the Buddhist tanka poem of the Saigoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #22 Soji-ji Temple.  That suggests the Akata 33 Kannon Pikgrimage's numbering corresponds to that of the Saigoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage.  The sand from the Saigoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #22 Soji-ji Temple might have been buried somewhere around the Akata 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #22 Hakusan Shrine.

All the high-ranking and the low-ranking

Rely upon the pledge of Buddha

In Soji-ji Temple

     If Hakusan Shrine was merged to Shinmei-sha Shrine sometime between 1910 and 1918, after the Shrine Bureau, which implemented Shrine Consolidation Policy, was created as a branch of the Home Ministry in 1900, and, if it became independent again after World War II ended, its present location could be different from the place where the sand from the Saigoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #22 Soji-ji Temple was buried.

Address: Uwadaomote Akata, Yurihonjo, Akita 015-0023

The Saigoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #22 Soji-ji Temple

Address: 1 Chome-6-1 Sojiji, Ibaraki, Osaka 567-0801

Phone: 072-622-3209

Shirayama Hime Jinja Shrine

Address: Ni-105-1 Sannomiyamachi, Hakusan, Ishikawa 920-2114

Phone: 076-272-0680