Virtual Akashi 33 Kannon Pilgrimage #15 Chofuku-ji Temple

 

     Chofuku-ji Temple was founded by Gyoki in 730.  It is also the 5th on the Kobe Six Jizo Pilgrimage.

     Six Jizo Pilgrimage is based on the idea of the Six Paths in Buddhist cosmology.  The paths are the 6 worlds where sentient beings are reincarnated based on their karma, which is linked to their actions in previous lives.  The six paths are:

1. the world of gods or celestial beings (deva)

2. the world of human beings (manushya)

3. the world of warlike demigods (asura)

4. the world of animals (tiryagyoni)

5. the world of hungry ghosts (preta)

6. the world of Hell (naraka)

     In the Kobe Six Jizo Pilgrimage, they are in reverse order, and Chofuku-ji Temple is supposed to correspond to #2 the world of human beings (manushya).

     The main deity is the Ksitigarbha statue, which holds a jewel in his left hand and a khakkhara in his right.  It dates back to at the latest the late Heian Period (794-1185).  It stands 120 centimeters tall and is carved from a single piece of wood.  Its attendant Buddhist images are Acalanatha and Vaisravana.  The question is where the #15 deity of the Akashi 33 Kannon Pilgrimage, which is supposed to be Arya Avalokitesvara, who is the human-figure prototype of the other 6 metamorphoses, is.

      The Ksitigarbha statue is believed to have been the guardian deity of Priest Chukai (1162-1227), who was the 4th son of Taira Norimori (1128-1185), who drowned himself in the Battle of Dan-no-ura, when the Taira Clan was destroyed by the Minamoto Clan.  Chukai was captured in the battle and exiled to Izu Province the same year.  In the province, he spent his time under the guardianship of Kano Muneshige (?-1193), and received the support of Minamoto Yoritomo (1147-1199), the founder of the Kamakura Shogunate.  Chukai returned to Kyoto in 1189.  He was given back the land in Sanjo Ogawa Takahata, which had belonged to his father and founded Hobodai-in Temple there.

     In the world of human beings (manushya), good fortune and bad fortune are like a twisted rope.

In the mid-Edo period, Priest Eishu revived Chofuku-ji Temple, purchasing the Amida Hall of Kinko-ji Temple.

     Chofuku-ji Temple has Chofukuji Archaeological Museum.

     Teh temple’s Buddhist tanka poem is:

The Buddha's broad vow

To relieve all people together

Is as broad as the ocean.

Address: Yoda-369 Oshibedanicho, Nishi Ward, Kobe, Hyogo 651-2205

Phone: 078-994-0150

Kinko-ji Temple

Address: Kinko-147 Oshibedanicho, Nishi Ward, Kobe, Hyogo 651-2203

Phone: 078-994-0007

Hobodai-in Temple

Address: 1223-2 Oharano Minamikasugacho, Nishikyo Ward, Kyoto, 610-1153

Phone: 075-331-3823