Sanmei-in Temple 8 Kyushu Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage

 

The 2nd of March, 2018, and I begin day 6 of my walk around Kyushu on the Kyushu Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage in the rural suburbs of Nakatsu. The first 5 days were spent in the Kunisaki Peninsula.

Sanmei-in is temple number 8 on the pilgrimage, and the Fudo is enshrined within the Goma Hall. I had visited this temple some years ago as it is also temple 20 on the Kyushu 108 Pilgrimage. That post can be viewed here.

It is a pretty new temple, founded after the experience of the priest performing austerities for 50 days on a sacred mountain.

each time I have visited the main hall, the elevated hexagonal building was closed.

It houses an eleven-faced, thousand-armed Kannon.

The Fudo in the Goma Hall is a "stand-in" as the original statue split in half during a ritual for the healing of the priest's father.

It is a Shingon temple and has a miniature Shikoku Pilgrimage in the grounds.

The previous post was on Miyahata Shrine, my last stop on day 5.

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Unpenji Temple 66 Shikoku Ohenro Pilgrimage

 

I spent the night at a minshuku at the base of Mount Unpenji. Overnight, there had been a heavy snowfall. 

I set off at first light, before the sun, as I had about 650 meters to climb to reach the temple. The trail was virgin. Not a single footstep had been made in the 6 to 12 inches of powdery snow.

After about an hour of climbing I was overtaken by a couple of younger guys who had been eating breakfast when I left the minshuku. Not only younger, but they were only carrying small day packs, so I watched them hurtle up the mountain and sat and had a cigarette break.

Unpenji Temple, the 66th of the pilgrimage is the highest of the temples at about 900 meters altitude.

Thye Niomon is very new, but not the Nio, although I can't find a date for them.

The temples origins begin with Kobo Daishi who climbed the mountain as a you man. He came back later and established the temple.

On his third visit he carved the honzen statue.

It became a well-supported temple with many branch temples on the mountain and became known as the Koya of Shikoku.

However, in the 11th century a fire completely destroyed the temple.

The temple was restored later and the new honzon, a seated 1000-armed Kannon, and a Bishamonten statue were carved.

The great warlord Motochika Chosokabe visited the temple and spoke with the priest about his plan to rule over all of Shikoku. I am guessing that therefore, Unpenji was one of the few temples in Shikoku he didn't destroy.

Most of the buildings seem to be fairly new.

I wish I had had more time to explore, as there are some fine statues inside.

The temple became much more accessible in 1989 when the Unpenji Ropeway was built.

There is actually quite a lot to see at the temple and it has extensive grounds. It is well known for Autumn colours, but for me at least, the most impressive feature was the 500 life-size statues of the Rakan, or Arhats. I gave them their own post here.

Shrine to Gosha Daigongen, the protective kami of the temple.

The previous temple I stopped at was the Bangai Temple Tsubaki-do, down below. Temple 65, Sankakuji was the previous main temple, and the previous post was on the awesome Rakan statues here at Unpenji

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Dogaku Temple 11 Shikoku Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage

 

The gate at Dogaku-ji is quite unusual. Architecturally, it is, I believe, Chinese in style, but with a different style of roof that is not normally seen with this kind of gate.

Some people complain about the graffiti scratched into the walls, but some of it seems quite old and overall gives a kind of wabi-sabi patina....

Dogakuji turned out to be quite a pleasant surprise.

It is the second of the twenty "extra" temples on the Shikoku Ohenro pilgrimage, but when I walked that pilgrimage, it was too far off the main route for me to visit.

I visited it as the 11th temple on the Shikoku Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage, and my first stop was the cave-like structure housing the Fudo.

Often, Fudo is shown with two young boy attendants. In total, he has 36 of these attendants, and on this pilgrimage, each temple has a different one of the 36. Here at Dogakuji, it is Ratara Doji.

The Fudo is a Noten Fudo, said to offer protection against dementia and strokes.

The Seven Lucky Gods.

It is said the temple was founded by Gyoki.

There is a miniature Ohenro pilgrimage with all 88 of the honzon statues represented as well as then20 extra.

I believe that under each of the circles on the ground is sand brought from each temple as well.

Now this "hall" is filled with windchimes.

I visited on December 27th, 2016. A few months later the main hall was completely destroyed by fire,but I believe it has now been rebuilt.

The temple is famous for its wisteria, but in midwinter, were obviously dormant.

The temple is most famous for being where Kobo Daishi studied and trained as a young child.

He came back much later as an adult and enshrined various statues that he himself had carved, including the honzon, a Yakushi Nyorai.

It is a National Treasure and survived the recent bfire.

The spring was used by the child Kobo Daishi for water for his inkstone.

Behind the spring is a delightful garden I will post about next.

The main hall that burned down a few months after this photo was taken...

Several Mizuko Jizo line the approach.

Overall Dogakuji was a nice surprise and has many sights of interest.

The statue to the right of the steps is of Iroha Daishi, about the legend that Kobo Daishi composed the Iroha, a poem that is a kind of mnemonic for the Japanese syllabary, similar to the alphabet song in English. He is said to have composed it as a child here, but the statue shows an older Kobo. For many reasons, historians say the Iroha was composed several centuries after Kobo Daishi.

The previous post in this series on my walk around Shikoku on the Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage was on the nearby temple 10, Tozenji.

if you would like to subscribe by email, just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published or made public. I post new content almost every day, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the most recent posts.