Virtual Akashi 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #10 Fukurin-ji Temple

 

     Fukurin-ji Temple was founded sometime between 1521 and 1528 in Kanigasaka Village, Akashi County, Harima Province.  Kanigasaka shares the same Chinese characters with today's place name Wasaka.  The village was first documented in 1338 during the Southern and Northern Courts Period (1336-1392).  During the Siege of Miki, which lasted from 1578 to 1580, a monk from Fukurin-ji Temple is said to have called himself Ito Shiroe and fought for Bessho Nagaharu (?-1580) against Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598), achieving military success.

     The temple houses a large, brilliantly colored Nirvana painting measuring 1.8 meters wide and 3.1 meters tall, which was donated by Kabutoya Rokuzaemon in 1742.  The main hall was destroyed in an air raid in 1945, but this Nirvana painting escaped.

     The temple’s Buddhist tanka poem is:

The figure of the clear moon

Is pure at Fukurin-ji Temple,

Which polishes even the murky hearts.

Address: 2-chome-8 Wasaka, Akashi, Hyogo 673-0012

Phone: 078-928-6638