Virtual North Settsu 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #15 Taiko-ji Temple

 

     According to temple legend, Taiko-ji Temple was founded in 1395 by Ikeda Mitsumasa, the lord of Ikeda Castle.  Sometime between 1469 and 1487, Ikeda Tadamasa renovated the main hall.  The Settsu Meisho Zue, or the Illustrated Guide to Famous Places in Settsu, which was first published in 1796, mentions the temple's sango, Enzo-san.

     Around 1513, Shohaku (1443-1527), a renga poet, moved from Kyoto during the Onin War (1467-1477), supported by Ikeda Masataka, who had succeeded Tadamasa, and built a hermitage in the temple's precincts.  Renga, literally Linked Poem, is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry in which short poems with 5-7-5 syllables and those with 7-7 syllables are alternately composed usually by multiple poets.  Some of such gatherings functioned as information exchange sites.  During the medieval days, renga was a part of the cultural knowledge required for high society, and Shohaku instructed the Ikeda Family in composing renga poems.  In 1518, he moved to Sakai, lived in Kokoku-an Temple, coached merchants and traders in Sakai to compose renga poems, and died there.

     After that, Taiko-ji Temple fell into disrepair several times, and was moved to Itami by Araki Murashige (1535-1586), who used to be subject to the Ikeda Family, but who overpowered the family.  Murashige was banished in 1580 by Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), who was assassinated by Akechi Mitsuhide (1528-1582) on June 2nd, 1582.  Mitsuhide was killed by peasants on the 13th.  The temple was restored in Ikeda by Ikeda Tomomasa (?-1604), who once was subject to Arashige, after 1596.  Life is really like straw ropes.

     In 1694, the then head priest rebuilt the main hall and other buildings, and invited sub-temples to come, and the temple flourished in the mid-Edo period, with over 40 sub-temples.  There were 3 sub-temples within the temple's precincts, but only one of them, Yoshun-ji Temple, remains today.

     Taiko-ji Temple also became the family temple of the Ikeda Family.  The precincts have the graves of the successive lords of Ikeda Castle and the temple bell which is said to have been donated by the Ikeda Family.  The ceiling of the entrance is called the "bloodstained ceiling."  The 6th lord of the castle, Ikeda Sadamasa, was attacked by Hosokawa Takakuni (1484-1531) in 1507.  When the castle fell, Sadamasa committed seppuku suicide, with the floor stained with blood.  They used the bloodstained boards for the ceiling of the temple.

Address: 2 Chome-5-16 Ayaha, Ikeda, Osaka 563-0051

Phone: 072-751-3433

Kokoku-an Temple

Address: 2 Chome-1-37 Nakamikunigaokacho, Sakai Ward, Sakai, Osaka 590-0022

Phone: 072-222-3800

Ikeda Castle Ruins

Address: 3-19 Shiroyamacho, Ikeda, Osaka 563-0052

Phone: 072-753-2767