Kannonshō-ji Temple

Overview

Kannonshō-ji (観音正寺, かんのんしょうじ) is a Buddhist temple in the Azuchi neighbourhood of Ōmihachiman, a city on the eastern shore of Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture. It belongs to the Tendai (天台, てんだい) school, one of the great schools of Japanese Buddhism, and its principal image — the honzon (本尊, ほんぞん), the statue around which a temple's worship is organised — is a figure of Senjū Kannon Bosatsu (千手観音菩薩, せんじゅかんのんぼさつ), the Thousand-Armed, Thousand-Eyed Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. The temple's full name is Kinugasa-san Kannonshō-ji (繖山 観音正寺, きぬがささん かんのんしょうじ), taking its mountain name from Mount Kinugasa, on whose southern flank it sits.

The temple occupies a high, exposed position: roughly 370 metres up the south side of Mount Kinugasa, whose summit reaches 433 metres above sea level. It is the 31st stop on the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage (西国三十三所, さいごくさんじゅうさんしょ), the great circuit of thirty-three Kannon temples across western Japan, and it also belongs to the Lake Biwa 108 Pilgrimage Sites, the Kōtō Saigoku Thirty-Three Sites (近江西国三十三箇所, こうと さいごく さんじゅうさんかしょ), and the Shinbutsu Reijō Junpai no Michi (神仏霊場巡拝の道), a pilgrimage route linking Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples.

History

Kannonshō-ji was founded in 605, in the Asuka period (飛鳥時代, あすかじだい), the era that runs from 538 to 710 and during which Buddhism took root in Japan after its introduction from the Korean kingdom of Baekje. The temple therefore belongs to the first century of organised Buddhist practice in the archipelago, when temples were still being founded under imperial and aristocratic patronage.

The site's later history is bound up with a castle. Kannonji Castle (観音寺城, かんのんじじょう) took its name from the temple, and the temple stands on the castle's former site. That ground is now designated a National Historic Site.

What Stands There Today

The temple's buildings occupy the south side of the Mount Kinugasa summit, at an elevation of about 370 metres, looking out over Lake Biwa and the surrounding country. The honzon, a Thousand-Armed Kannon, remains the focus of worship, and the temple functions as the thirty-first station of the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage — a route whose pilgrims, in the traditional manner, travel from temple to temple collecting the seal of each Kannon site.

Because the temple stands on the site of Kannonji Castle, the visitor is walking through two layers of history at once: a seventh-century temple and the medieval fortification that grew up around it and borrowed its name. The whole is protected as a National Historic Site.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's name is written 観音正寺. Its kana reading is かんのんしょうじ, and it is romanised as Kannonshō-ji.

The name breaks down into four characters:

• 観 — read kan here. It means "to observe, to look upon." In Buddhist vocabulary it translates the Sanskrit avalokita, "looking down (upon the world)."
• 音 — read non here. It means "sound." Together with 観 it forms the name Kannon (観音, かんのん), the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteśvara, who is depicted hearing the cries of suffering beings. Note the sound change: the character 音 is read on in isolation but non inside this compound.
• 正 — read shō here. It means "correct, true, orthodox." In temple names it often signals a claim to authentic transmission or right teaching.
• 寺 — read ji here. It means "temple," and is the standard suffix for a Buddhist temple's name.

So the name can be read as "the True Temple of Kannon." The full name adds the mountain name, Kinugasa-san (繖山, きぬがささん): 繖 (kinu, "silk") + 傘 (gasa, "umbrella") — a "silk umbrella," the shape the mountain's profile is said to resemble. The mountain name precedes the temple name in the standard Japanese order, as in Kinugasa-san Kannonshō-ji.

Visiting and Context

Kannonshō-ji is reached from Ōmihachiman, in Shiga Prefecture, on the eastern shore of Lake Biwa. The temple's position at about 370 metres on the south side of Mount Kinugasa means the approach is a climb, and the reward is one of the broadest views over the lake in the region.

For readers of Japanese, the temple's name repays attention because it packs three separate lessons into four characters: the on'yomi reading of 観音 as Kannon, the sound change from on to non in compounds, and the standard temple suffix 寺 read ji. The mountain name, 繖山, is a reminder that Japanese place names often encode a visual metaphor — here, a silk umbrella — rather than a description.

As the thirty-first of the thirty-three Saigoku Kannon temples, Kannonshō-ji sits within a network that has drawn pilgrims across western Japan for centuries, and it is also counted among the Lake Biwa 108 Pilgrimage Sites and the Kōtō Saigoku Thirty-Three Sites. Its ground is a National Historic Site, shared with the castle that took its name.