Saturday, January 9, 2016

Kyushu 108 Pilgrimage Temple 93 Shohoji


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I began the third day of my walk around Kyushu visiting Nanzoin in Sasaguri, though this was not one of the 108 pilgrimage temples on my route.

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After Nanzoin the road dropped down out of the mountains into the Iizuka valley and by lunchtime I reached Shohoji, one of the twenty "extra" temples added on to the main 88. Like all temples on this particular pilgrimage it belonged to the Shingon sect.

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The young priest welcomed me and made me a cup of tea, something that would happen quite often on this walk. Its not a very popular pilgrimage even among Japanese, and I was truly made to feel a guest by many temples.

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He told me that his father was the priest of a temple not too far from here that I would be visiting in the later stages of the pilgrimage. He also told me his father had walked the whole pilgrimage .

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The honzon of the temple was a seated Yakushi Nyorai, and there was a pair of stone nio, in the now prevalent, standard, national, style, a small Fudo, and several Jizo. What there was a lot of was frogs......

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