The precincts of Jomyo-in Temple were filled with Jizo statues

Precinct crammed with Jizo — Jizo at Jomyo-in Temple

I got off the train at Nippori Station and headed for Jomyo-in Temple through the spacious Yanaka Cemetery, visiting the grave of Tokugawa Yoshinobu and other places. The temple is located behind Kanei-ji Temple. It has a long history, dating back to 1666. The name of the era at that time was Kanbun, which I have not heard much about, and it was the era of the fourth shogun, Ietsuna, who seemed to be a bit plain in terms of shoguns. The temple was built as a subsidiary temple of Kanei-ji Temple, a family temple of the Tokugawa shoguns, but there was nothing to remind one of the prestige of the Tokugawa family as one walked around the temple grounds. The temple grounds were calm and quiet.

The only thing that makes Jomyo-in a little different from other temples is that there are so many Jizo Bosatsu (Jizo Bodhisattva) statues in the temple grounds that I could not count them. As you can see in the photo, Jizo are placed in the precincts of the temple without any space between them, which is a sight to behold. Many of them seem to have been placed in the precincts of the temple for a long time and their surfaces are worn out. Some of them are missing parts of their bodies, and some of them are missing parts of their faces. I thought all of them were old, but there were some new ones placed here and there. Looking for a new Jizo, I felt like I was playing a Jizo version of "Where's Waldo?".

Comment via

日本語