Virtual Akashi 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #14 Shomyo-ji Temple

 

     Shomyo-ji Temple was founded in 1651 in Nishi-Toda Village.  The village was already on the map published in 1611.  It is strange that there has never been a Higashi-Toda Village.

     For your information, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616), the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate, followed the example of the Toyotomi administration and conducted a land survey of the distribution and rice yields of the feudal lords' territories and the lands of temples and shrines across Japan in September, 1605.  He appointed Nishio Yoshitsugu (1530-1606) as magistrate in charge of Eastern Provinces and Tsuda Hidemasa (1546-1653) as magistrate in charge of Western Provinces.  The Keicho Kuni-ezu, or the Keicho Maps of the Provinces, and Gocho, or the Registers of Villages, are said to have been made based on this survey.  The maps and registers are believed to have been destroyed in fires in Edo Castle, and no original copies exist today.  The only copies that remain are those covering 11 provinces and one island, and are limited to Western Japan.  Some even argue the maps and registers did not cover the entire country, but was limited to western provinces as part of oppressive policies against the western outsiders daimyo.

     The temple’s Buddhist tanka poem is:

Thankfully, even the trees and grasses

Show the colors of the Buddhist teachings,

Which Shomyo-ji Temple never ceases to offer.

     Before World War II, when Aprils arrived, the temple would erect flags and streamers,

and the elderly villagers would come out and wait for pilgrims to come, lively preparing to serve hot water and tea.  The pilgrimage was revived after the war, but, before we were aware of it, they disappeared.

Address: Nishitoda-818 Hiranocho, Nishi Ward, Kobe, Hyogo 651-2267

Phone: 078-961-0646