Shōfuku-ji Temple

Overview

Shōfuku-ji (正福寺, しょうふくじ) is a Buddhist temple in the city of Kasama, in Ibaraki Prefecture, north-east of Tokyo. It belongs to the Shingon-shū Fumon sect, a branch of Shingon Buddhism, and its honzon (本尊, ほんぞん — the principal image of worship) is a statue 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 stands on Mount Sashiro, and its full name is Sashiro-zan Shōfuku-ji (佐白山 正福寺). It is also known as the "Sashiro Kannon."

Shōfuku-ji is the 23rd stop on the Bandō Sanjūsankasho (坂東三十三箇所, ばんどうさんじゅうさんかしょ), a pilgrimage circuit of thirty-three temples across the Kantō region dedicated to Kannon. The temple's traditional founding date is 651, placing it in the Asuka period (538–710), the era in which Buddhism took root in Japan.

History

The temple's founding is dated to the second year of the Hakuchi era (白雉, はくち — "White Pheasant"), which corresponds to 651. This places its origins in the middle of the seventh century, during the Asuka period, when the young Japanese state was still absorbing Buddhist doctrine, scripture and temple architecture from the Korean kingdoms and Tang China. The Hakuchi era name itself belongs to the reign of Emperor Kōtoku.

According to the temple's tradition, the site on Mount Sashiro was established as a place of worship in that year, which gives Shōfuku-ji a claim to considerable antiquity among the temples of the Kantō plain. Over the centuries it was drawn into the Shingon tradition, the esoteric school founded in Japan by Kūkai in the early ninth century, and it belongs today to the Shingon-shū Fumon branch.

Its position as the 23rd of the thirty-three Bandō temples fixed its place in the regional pilgrimage network. The Bandō Sanjūsankasho grew into a major devotional circuit during the medieval period, and a temple's number on the route determined the order in which pilgrims approached it and the reputation it carried. Shōfuku-ji's dedication to Senjū Kannon — the thousand-armed form of the bodhisattva, whose many hands hold tools to aid the suffering — is characteristic of the Kannon-focused devotion that defines the entire circuit.

What Stands There Today

The temple occupies a site on Mount Sashiro in Kasama, at coordinates roughly 36.39° north and 140.26° east. Its identity is bound up with the mountain: the full temple name, Sashiro-zan Shōfuku-ji, takes the mountain as its sangō (山号, さんごう — the "mountain name" prefixed to many Japanese temple names). The honzon remains the Senjū Kannon, and the temple is popularly called the Sashiro Kannon after its mountain.

Kasama itself is a small city in Ibaraki Prefecture known for its ceramics and for Mount Sashiro, which rises behind the town. Shōfuku-ji's setting on the mountain places it among the hilltop and hillside temples that punctuate the Kantō landscape, where the walk up to the precinct is part of the visit.

The Name in Japanese

The temple's name is written 正福寺. Its kana reading is しょうふくじ, and its romaji is Shōfuku-ji. The long vowel in the first element is written with a macron: Shō-, not Sho-.

Broken down character by character:

• 正 — read しょう (shō) in this word. It means "correct," "right," "true" or "upright." It is the same character used in 正しい (ただしい, tadashii — correct) and in the name of the Shōtoku era. In temple names it often carries the sense of orthodox or true dharma.
• 福 — read ふく (fuku) in this word. It means "fortune," "good luck," "blessing" or "merit." It appears in everyday words such as 福 (ふく, fuku — good fortune) and 幸福 (こうふく, kōfuku — happiness).
• 寺 — read じ (ji) in this word. It means "temple." This is the standard suffix for Buddhist temple names in Japan, and it appears in hundreds of them, from Sensō-ji in Tokyo to Tōdai-ji in Nara. Note that the same character is read てら (tera) when it stands alone as a common noun.

So the name as a whole can be glossed as "Temple of True Fortune" or "Temple of Righteous Blessing" — a name that pairs a moral quality (正) with a beneficent one (福).

Two further points of vocabulary are worth knowing for this temple. The mountain name, 佐白山 (Sashiro-san), is prefixed to the temple name in formal usage, giving 佐白山 正福寺. And the honzon's title, 千手観音 (せんじゅかんのん, Senju Kannon), breaks down as 千 (せん, sen — thousand) + 手 (しゅ, shu — hands) + 観音 (かんのん, Kannon — the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, literally "the one who perceives the sounds [of suffering]").

Visiting and Context

Shōfuku-ji is the 23rd of the thirty-three temples of the Bandō Sanjūsankasho, the Kannon pilgrimage of the Kantō region. Pilgrims on the circuit traditionally carry a scroll or a book of stamps and collect a red seal (朱印, しゅいん, shuin) at each temple; Shōfuku-ji is one of the stops where that seal is obtained. The circuit as a whole is the eastern counterpart to the older Saigoku Sanjūsankasho in western Japan, and walking or driving its thirty-three temples is a recognised form of devotion that takes several days.

The temple lies in Kasama, Ibaraki Prefecture, on Mount Sashiro. Kasama is reachable from Tokyo by rail, and the city is also known for its pottery and its stone quarries. For a visitor with an interest in the Japanese language, the temple offers a compact lesson in how temple names are built: a mountain name, a two-character name of virtue and blessing, and the ubiquitous 寺 suffix. The name 正福寺 is a good model for reading the hundreds of temple names that follow the same pattern across Japan.