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Temple 69 Kannonji 観音寺 Kannon-Ji
Temple Song
観音の大悲の力強ければ
おもき罪をも引きあげてたべ
Nio Guardian deities at the gate
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神恵院観音寺 Jinnei-In Kannon-Ji
quote
観音寺と神恵院
Kanonji to Shinkeiin Jinne-In and Kannonji Temples
Kannonji City in Kagawa Prefecture uniquely has two Holy Sites of Shikoku in one premise;
Jin’nein Temple (the 68th) and
Kannonji Temple (the 69th).
These temples were originally a part of Kotohiki (Harp Play) Hachimangu Shrine founded in 703 by Priest Nissho, who had received a divine message from Hachiman Daimyojin with the tune of Japanese harp heard from a boat on the sea. Jin’nein was also built at this time as an attached temple to the shrine.
In the Daido era (806-809), Kobo Daishi enshrined Amida Buddha、which was Honjibutsu (Buddhist counterpart of the deity of the shrine) and designated the shrine as the 68th of the 88 Holy Sites of Shikoku. Then he carved Sho Kanzeon Bosatsu (Sacred Form of Kannon) and built the formal seven buildings of a temple in the nearby mountain, and named it Kannonji Temple, which was designated as the 69th.
Later in the Meiji period (1868-1912), when temples and shrines were separated according to the Shinbutsu Bunri policy of the national government, Honjibutsu Amida Buddha of Kotohiki Hachimangu Shrine was removed to Nishi-Kondo Hall of Kannonji Temple, which became the main hall of Jin’nein Temple; hereby two temples has been located in the same premise since then. Jin’nein temple is up the stone steps from Kannonji Temple.
source : nippon-kichi.jp
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Close to this temple is
Sennenji 専念寺 Sennen-Ji
of the Jodoshu sect
仏光山称光院
葛飾区奥戸8-10-3
The main statue is a Seated Amida Nyorai.
Ever since Yamazaki Sookan 山崎宗鑑 Yamazaki Sokan (1465 - 1553),
a haiku poet of the Muromachi period, spent a night here, this temple was often visited by haiku poets.
. Yamazaki Sokan 山崎宗鑑 Yamazaki Sookan .
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The haiku poet Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶
visited here two times between 1792 and 1794 with the head priest
性誉和尚, haiku name Gobai Osho 五梅和尚.
Issa wrote the following haiku
乞食も護摩酢酌むらん今日の春
遠かたや凧の上ゆくほかけ舟
白魚のしろきが中に青藻哉
天に雲雀人間海にあそぶ日ぞ
The handwriting of one of these haiku is preserved in a stone memorial at the temple, see below.
- Reference -
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乞食も護摩酢酌むらん今日の春
kotsujiki mo gomazu kumuran kyoo no haru
even the begging monks
drink some ritual sake -
this first spring day
It was the first day of the first lunar month, New Year in the Edo period.
. gomazu 胡麻酢 sesame with vinegar .
Here written with the characters for 護摩, the fire rites of esoteric Buddhism.
In this context, it is an euphemism for ricewine, used by monks and priests who are officially not allowed to drink sake.
Other euphemisms are
hannyatoo 若湯（はんにゃとう）hot water of wisdom
Kara-cha 唐茶（からちゃ）tea from China
. Fire rituals, goma kuyoo 護摩供養 .
kotsujiki 乞食（こつじき） are monks who have left their home and taken to the road in their pursuit of religious experience. They live from alms and often have to sleep outside.
This is still a bit different than the henro pilgrims to the 88 Shingon temples of Shikoku in honor to Kobo Daishi.
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source : www.city.kanonji
元日やさらに旅宿とおもほへず
ganjitsu ya sara ni ryoshuku to omohoezu
New Year's Day -
I am still travelling on
it's hard to believe
On this trip to Matsuyama, Issa wrote
Saigoku kikoo 西国紀行
Record of Travels in the Western Provinces
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Zenigata, 銭形 the coin made of sand
on the beach of Kannonji Town
2008 ７月２０日付・一茶と銭形まつり
Issa and the Zenigata Festival
If Issa would be here to see this festival, with its dances and fireworks, what kind of special haiku would he write about it?
source : www.shikoku-np.co.jp
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Contribution by Christopher Drake
kotsujiki mo -beggars, here beggar pilgrims, too
goma-zu kumu-ran - are probably/surely drinking sake to fete
kyou no haru - the first day of the new year, the first day of spring
This hokku is from the opening section of Issa's Record of Travels in the Western Provinces (Saigoku kikou 西国紀行). He had been staying in a Pure Land Buddhist temple, Sennenji, in the harbor town of Kannonji in northeast Shikoku, an island west of Osaka. The head monk there wrote haikai, and Issa was able to stay there for long periods. In this travel journal Issa begins by saying goodbye to his friends at Sennenji, his home away from home, and he then pays his respects to the many beggar pilgrims who, like him, are also setting out or about to set out at the beginning of the new year on the very same roads -- he on a haikai journey and they to visit some or all of the 88 Shingon temples on Shikoku devoted to the right-handed Tantric Buddhism brought to Japan by Saint Kobo, who is worshipped at each of the temples.
Near Sennenji Temple, where Isa is staying, is the large Kannonji Temple, no. 69 on the 88-temple pilgrimage, so Issa is no doubt used to seeing many pilgrims visit the temple and knows the difficulties they are going through. The 88-temple pilgrimage is now a rather trendy, romantic one, but in Issa's time most of the pilgrims were impoverished, sick, or in very difficult circumstances, and they made the pilgrimage not just for merit but in desperate attempts to salvage something of their lives. As Issa writes in his travelog, most of them sleep under trees or on big rocks and must beg their way around the pilgrimage route. Issa himself doesn't feel much different than a beggar, since all he has is haikai, and he seems to wonder whether he will also end up sleeping outside in the first lunar month (Feb.) while on his journey. During his actual trip, he almost had to sleep under a tree once, but finally he was able to beg a night's lodging at a house.
In his haibun travelog Issa puts himself among the beggar pilgrims and compares his own cups of sake drunk to celebrate the new year with the many cups the many pilgrims must surely be drinking here and there in the town of Kannonji and around the Shikoku pilgrimage route. The -ran here is important. Sometimes the word simply means "seem to" (the "may not" option is weak unless there is a ya or ka), but in this hokku and the surrounding travelog Issa seems confident that even the poorest pilgrim surely will manage to get a little sake with which to welcome the new year. So here -ran means "probably, almost surely," since Issa is imagining many thousands of people he can't see and therefore must guess and estimate how they celebrate the new year. I tried to capture this element of guessing or imagining with "out there."
Issa puns and writes goma (sesame 胡麻) with characters (護摩) that refer to the sacred fire (Sanskrit homa, Japanese goma) used during many ceremonies in Shingon Tantric Buddhism, including some of the ceremonies at the 88 pilgrimage temples. This pun is a standard one, since "holy fire sesame vinegar dressing"(!) is a euphemism used by monks of many different sects to refer to sake, which they are officially forbidden to drink, as Gabi pointed out. Issa isn't referring to sesame dressing mixed with sake or anything like that. The word is simply monk argot for a guilty pleasure, sake.
Both Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines (they were usually paired in a set in Japan) gave alms the poor and to beggars around New Year's, so I suspect the reason Issa is confident that the beggars must be able to drink a few cups to celebrate the new year is because he's seen Sennenji, Kannonji, and other temples and shrines in the area giving out sake to beggars so that they can welcome the new year. There are other monk euphemisms for sake, so perhaps Issa used the one that puns on "sacred fire" because on New Year's day the fire-using Shingon temples on the pilgrimage route are probably giving free sake to beggars and other visitors.
Issa uses the standard phrase "today's spring" to refer to New Year's Day as the beginning of spring. This is Issa's second hokku in the travelog, and in the first Issa uses "first day of the year" (ganjitsu ya). New Year's Day often didn't quite coincide with the first day of lunar spring, but this was a minor detail, and the first day of the new year was generally referred to as the first day of spring. Issa set out on his journey a week later, on 1/8.
Regarding the pronunciation of "beggar" in the hokku, Issa may have used konjiki in his native dialect, but I have followed Issa's various editors and used kotsujiki, since I think it may be more probable. Kotsujiki is not snobbish or elitist. It's a traditional Buddhist word that refers to a mendicant monk wandering around while meditating on his feet and begging for alms at people's doors -- which is what the pilgrim beggars are doing, though they are lay believers. Later kotsujiki also came to be used for beggars in general. It seems unlikely that Issa felt this word to be detached from ordinary life, since in this and other hokku and haibun he often compares himself to a beggar.
And in this hokku there is the further element of Issa's compassion toward the many suffering pilgrim beggars who are making the Shikoku pilgrimage without any assurance that they'll even finish it alive. It seems likely that Issa would want to show his respect for these vulnerable pilgrim beggars by using the full Buddhist term, not a dialect version that people on Shikoku probably didn't use. Especially at New Year's, when polite language was the norm.
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Shikoku Henro 88 Temples 四国遍路８８札所
Two short Haiku Henro Trips, Summer 2005
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Pines at the beach of Temple Kannon-Ji 観音寺
. My Visit to Shikoku in 2005 .
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