Konjiji Temple 12 Shikoku Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage

 

Konjiji, temple number 12 on the Shikoku Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage, is a mountaintop temple with a strong Shugendo past.

It is also the okunoin of Dainichiji, the 13th temple on the famous Shikoku 88 Pilgrimage.

Like so many mountain temples associated with Shugendo, Konjiji is said to have been founded by the legendary En no Gyoja in the 7th Century.

More than a century later, Kobo Daishi visited and practised austerities and had a vision of Kongo Zao Gongen and so carved an image of him and placed it in a cave.

Each of the 36 temples on this Fudo pilgrimage has a statue of one of the 36 young acolytes called Doji. The one here is called Harahara Doji.

Susuharae is an old traditional ritual of sweeping away soot, dust, cobwebs etc from under the eaves of shrines and temples  for the new year using a takesao, a long bamboo with straw or leaf "brush" at the end. A short video of it being done ceremonially at Dazaifu Tenmangu in this old post.

The temple fell into disuse but was revived at the end of the 16th century by Hachisuka Iemasu, the Daimyo of Awa Domain. He took the Zao Gongen statue and enshrined it within the castle town but strange things happened so he made a copy and placed the copy back at Konjiji. Strange things continued to happen so he realized the statue need to be returned which is why there are two statues now.

The temple sits at an elevation of 310 meters, and has superb views down on Tokushima and the Yoshino River. I will post more of the views in the next post in the series.

About 500 meters from the main temple is a waterfall used for ascetic training. I suspect that the ladder I passed on the trail up the mountain was one way to get to the falls.

I believe the masks pictured below were carved by a famous Noh mask carver from Shiga.

The first two masks are Tengu, but the third is a Noh mask representation of Fudo Myoo

The previous post was on the way up the mountain to the temple.

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Torin-an & Yuku-an Temples 49 & 50 Shodoshima Pilgrimage

 

December 28th, 2015, and I begin day 5 of my walk along the Shodoshima Pilgrimage with a couple of small hermitages close to each other.

Both are located to the NE of Tonosho, the biggest town and main port of the island. Most pilgrims start in Tonosho and go around the island clockwise. I, however, started in the SE of the island and roughly started at temple 1 and went clockwise, so I am approaching Tonosho for the first time.

I ended up taking 8 days to do the pilgrimage, and as this is thye start of day 5 I have technically passed the halfway point.

Number 49, Torin-an, was in the past a fully-fledged temple called Manganji, but now is downgraded to a hermitage. It's primary statue is a wooden Jizo. As with all these tiny, community supported establishments, there was a well kept undercover seating area for pilgrims.

Very close by in number 50, Yuku-an, with a large lotus pond in front, though at this time of the year no sign of the lotus plants.

Yuku-an is a little more substantial than Torin-an. Its main statues is a Yakushi Nyorai, though it has several other statues inside and a large stone Jizo outside...

The Jizo is probably a Kosodate Jizo.

Flanking the Nyorai, which is a "hidden Buddha", is a statue of En no Gyoja, photo 11, the legendary founder of Shugendo.

With so many mountain cave temples on the pilgrimage, this points to its origins with shugenja and yamabushi.

The final photo shows the remains of last year's lotus plants....

The previous post in this series was on the final two temples of yesterday, Tamonji and Enmanji

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Ryuzoji Temple 17 Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage Part Two

 

This is the second part of my post on Ryuzoji Temple in Yamaguchi City. The previous post can be read here.

Above the main buildings is this large Blue Fudo Myoo and attendants

Behind it are the Tsuzumi waterfalls, according to the legend discovered by En no Gyoja, which led to the establishment of the temple.

The falls are 37 meters high, with three tiers of 18, 3, and 16 meters.

The falls were used by yamabushi for training.

The ten-metre high Fudo statue was, I think, created in 1989 as part of a collection of Fudo Myoo's around Yamaguchi, of which it is the12th.

See the previous post for more of the history of the temple.

I visited on November 25th. 2014, day 23 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage.

The trail leads up to a small cave which is the okunoin of the temple, but I did not venture that far.

En no Gyoja, the legendary founder of Shugendo and the discoverer of the falls and cave.

I believe these two little demons are the one that En no Gyoja "tamed" to do his bidding.

I then headed in to the temples small Treasure House....

The previous post was on the approach to the temple and the main buildings. with a National Monument Gingko tree and a quite rare statue of Kannon.

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