Katsuō-ji
The Katsuō-ji ( Japanese 勝 尾 寺 ) is a Buddhist temple in the city of Minō in Osaka prefecture in Japan . The temple is associated with the Shingon-shu belief . The main portrait of the temple is a statue of the eleven-headed and thousand-armed Kannon . The Katsuō-ji is the 23rd temple of the Saigoku pilgrimage route ( 西 国 三十 三 箇 所 , Saigoku sanjūsankasho ).
overview
According to the temple legend, the Katsuō-ji goes back to a mountain hut that was built in 727 by the brothers Zenchū ( 善 仲 ) and Zensan ( 善 算 ). Prince Kaijō ( 開 成 ), a son of Emperor Konin, is said to have lived on the site since 765 . On July 13, 775, the Miroku-ji Temple was built as the first official temple building. 780 the monk Myokan is said to have carved the main portrait of the temple together with 18 children within a month. Thanks to donations from the imperial family, the temple prospered during the Heian period .
During the battle of Ichi-no-Tani in the Gempei War , however, large parts of the temple grounds were destroyed. Reconstruction began as early as 1188. Extensive reconstructions were initiated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the Azuchi Momoyama period . He also donated a statue of Kannon , which is subsequently venerated along with the main statue .
The extension of the temple area of around 200 hectares was proven during excavations in 1963 by finds from the 13th century. Thereafter, buried statues of the Guardian Kings and the Myōō delimited the temple grounds in the four cardinal directions and the four secondary directions.
The name of the temple is associated with Emperor Seiwa . This is said to have recovered from an illness thanks to the ardent prayer of a temple abbot. As a thank you, he gave the temple the symbols katsu for “win, win” and ō for “king”, which were interpreted as “wins against a king”. The monks later replaced the character for king with the current spelling.
The tradition of visiting the temple for good luck is still alive today: There are a large number of small Daruma lucky charms on the temple grounds .
literature
- Patricia Frame Rugola: The Saikoku Kannon Pilgrimage Route . Dissertation, Ohio State University, 1986.
- Valeria Jana Schwanitz and August Wierling: Saigoku. On the way in Japan's western lands . Manpuku-Verlag, Potsdam 2012, ISBN 978-3-9815168-0-7 .
Web links
- Official Website - Japanese, English, Spanish, French, Chinese and Korean
Coordinates: 34 ° 51 ′ 57 " N , 135 ° 29 ′ 27.8" E