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.

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 It will not be published or made public.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 last ten posts.

The Way to Konjiji Temple

 

Konjiji is temple number 12 on the Shikoku Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage.

It is also the okunoin of Dainichi-ji, temple 13 on the Shikoku Ohenro Pilgrimage.

It is located high on a mountain and was renowned as a shugendo site, a training place for yamabushi.

For those on foot it is a great opportunity to get off the main roads.....

As would be expected, there are lots of Fudo statues....

And numerous sacred sites along the way....

Including a small waterfall with shimenawa and fudo....

I don' know where the ladder goes.... I climbe part way up, but as I had a very heavy pack I chose to come back down....

The previous post in this series on the Shikoku Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage was on the garden at Dogaku Temple, the previous temple down beow the mountain.

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 It will not be published and made public.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

Shoyoen Garden at Dogakuji Temple

 

Dogakuji Temple in Tokushima on Shikoku is the temple where Kobo Daishi studied as a young child. It is the 2nd of the 20 extra temples on the famous Shikoku Ohenro Pilgrimage, but also the 11th temple of the Shikoku Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage, which is why I visited it.

Behind the main buildings is a small pond garden named Shoyoen.

It is thought to have been built in the late Muromachi Period, the mid to late 16th century.

It features a lot of rock, native Awa Bluestone.

Some of the rock is not brought in and positioned, but original to the site.

Noticeable are the bridges, each composed of a single, very thin slab of stone.

It is said that the great 20th century garden designer and scholar Mori Shigemori liked his garden and spent a lot of time here....

The final three photos are from a small garden between two of the buildings.

The previous post was a large one on Dogakuji Temple itself.

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.

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.