Hotsumisaki-ji Temple

Overview

Hotsumisaki-ji (最御崎寺) is a Shingon Buddhist temple in Muroto, a city on the Pacific coast of Kōchi Prefecture on the island of Shikoku. It is the twenty-fourth of the eighty-eight temples that make up the Shikoku Pilgrimage, the great circuit of Buddhist sites that circles the island. It is also the first of the pilgrimage's temples that a walking pilgrim reaches after crossing from Tokushima Prefecture into Kōchi, and it marks the beginning of the stage of the route traditionally described as shugyō (修行), "austerity and discipline" — the hardest and most physically demanding stretch of the circuit. The temple was founded in 807, during the Heian period, in the second year of the Daidō era.

History

The temple's founding is dated to 807. The Heian period (794–1185) was the era in which the Shingon school of Buddhism took root in Japan, and Hotsumisaki-ji belongs to that tradition. Shingon is the school of esoteric Buddhism established by the monk Kūkai, known after his death by the honorific title Kōbō Daishi, whose life and travels are woven through the legends of the Shikoku Pilgrimage. The pilgrimage's eighty-eight temples are traditionally associated with him, and Hotsumisaki-ji's position on the circuit places it within that tradition.

The temple sits at Murotomisakichō, on the Muroto Peninsula, a narrow finger of land that juts into the Pacific Ocean in the far south-east of Shikoku. This is a coast exposed to typhoons and ocean swell, and the pilgrimage route through it is a long walk between settlements. The temple's location near the tip of the peninsula is what gives the site its character: it is a place reached after effort, not passed through casually.

Within the ordered sequence of the pilgrimage, Hotsumisaki-ji follows Yakuō-ji Temple, the twenty-third temple, and is followed by Shinshō-ji Temple, the twenty-fifth. The numbering is not a ranking but a route: pilgrims move from one to the next in a fixed order, and the twenty-fourth temple is the point at which the journey enters Kōchi.

What Stands There Today

Hotsumisaki-ji is an active Shingon temple and a functioning stop on the pilgrimage. As with the other temples on the circuit, pilgrims who arrive can receive the temple's seal — a handwritten red stamp and calligraphy, called a nōkyō (納経), inscribed in a pilgrim's stamp book — which serves as proof of having visited each site in turn. The temple stands in Murotomisakichō, in Muroto, on the Muroto Peninsula, at coordinates roughly 33.25° north and 134.18° east.

The temple's setting is coastal and elevated, on ground that looks out over the Pacific. For walkers on the pilgrimage, the twenty-fourth temple is a milestone: it is the first temple in Kōchi Prefecture, and reaching it means the route has entered its most strenuous section.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's name is written 最御崎寺. Its reading in kana is ほつみさきじ, and in romaji it is Hotsumisaki-ji.

The name breaks down into four characters:

• 最 — read here as hot (part of the compressed element hotsu). The character means "most" or "utmost." On its own it is normally read motto or sai, but in this name it appears in a contracted form.
• 御 — read here as mi. This is a polite or honorific prefix, the same character used in many Japanese place names and in the word o-miyage (souvenir). It lends the name a respectful tone.
• 崎 — read here as saki. The character means "cape," "promontory," or "small peninsula." It is extremely common in Japanese coastal place names, and it describes exactly the geography of the Muroto Peninsula.
• 寺 — read here as ji. The character means "temple" and appears at the end of the names of Buddhist temples across Japan.

Taken together, the elements hotsu + mi + saki form the place name Hotsumisaki — a cape or promontory — and 寺 marks the site as a temple. The name can be understood plainly as "the temple at Hotsumisaki," the temple on the cape. The reading is not the most obvious one a learner would guess from the individual characters, which is typical of Japanese place and temple names: the written form and the spoken form have to be learned together.

Visiting and Context

Hotsumisaki-ji is the twenty-fourth temple of the Shikoku Pilgrimage and the first in Kōchi Prefecture. The pilgrimage as a whole links eighty-eight temples across the four prefectures of Shikoku — Tokushima, Kōchi, Ehime, and Kagawa — and pilgrims traditionally travel the route on foot, though many now use buses, cars, or bicycles. The circuit is conventionally divided into stages associated with different kinds of practice, and the Kōchi section, which begins at Hotsumisaki-ji, is the one identified with shugyō (修行), "austerity and discipline." The terrain here is the reason: long coastal distances, steep climbs, and few towns.

For a pilgrim moving in numerical order, the temple follows Yakuō-ji, the twenty-third temple, and precedes Shinshō-ji, the twenty-fifth. Arriving at Hotsumisaki-ji therefore carries a double meaning — it is both the completion of the Tokushima stretch and the entry into the most demanding part of the route.

The temple's founding year of 807 places it in the early Heian period, in the second year of the Daidō era, a time when the Shingon school was establishing itself in Japan. Its identity as a Shingon temple, its position on the pilgrimage, and its site on the Muroto Peninsula together define what it is: a coastal temple at the start of the pilgrimage's hardest stage.