is a Shingon sect

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

temple located in the northeastern portion of the city of

Odawara is a Cities of Japan, city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 188,482 and a population density of 1,700 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Odawara lies in the Ashigara Plains, in ...

Kanagawa Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-dens ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It is more popularly known as the , after its primary object of worship. Shōfuku-ji is the 5th temple in the '' Bandō Sanjūsankasho'' pilgrimage circuit of 33 Buddhist temples in the

Kantō region The is a geography, geographical region of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures of Japan, prefectures: Chiba Prefecture, Chiba, Gunma Prefe ...

of eastern Japan to the

Bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a person who has attained, or is striving towards, '' bodhi'' ('awakening', 'enlightenment') or Buddhahood. Often, the term specifically refers to a person who forgoes or delays personal nirvana or ''bodhi'' in ...

Kannon Guanyin () is a common Chinese name of the bodhisattva associated with Karuṇā, compassion known as Avalokiteśvara (). Guanyin is short for Guanshiyin, which means " he One WhoPerceives the Sounds of the World". Originally regarded as m ...

History

According to temple legend, Shōfuku-ji was founded in the

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the capita ...

by the priest

Dōkyō was a Japanese monk who rose to power through the favor of Empress Kōken (Empress Shōtoku) and became a ''Daijō-daijin Zenji'', the rank set up for him, and later became a ''Hōō'', the highest rank of the religious world. He served Ryoben ...

for the soul of the deceased

Empress Kōken Empress Kōken (born Abe, known as Empress Shōtoku during her second reign; 718–770) was the 46th and 48th monarch of Japan according to the traditional order of succession. She was born to Crown Prince Obito (the future Emperor Shōmu) and ...

, and housed an image of Kannon brought to Japan by the famed

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

priest Guanjin, which had been owned by the Empress. However, no historical documents have survived to substantiate this legend, and the history of the temple is thus uncertain. The temple was relocated to its present location in 830 AD. Shōfuku-ji is mentioned in the

Kamakura period The is a period of History of Japan, Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the G ...

story, ''Soga Monogatari'', and enjoyed the patronage of the Go-Hōjō clan during the

Sengoku period The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...

. The current

Hondō Main hall or Main Temple is the building within a Japanese Buddhist monastery compound ('' garan'') which enshrines the main object of veneration.Kōjien Japanese dictionary Because the various denominations deliberately use different terms, thi ...

dates from 1706, and is the oldest surviving structure of the temple, although the bronze bell is dated 1629. At present, the temple belongs to the Tō-ji branch of the

Shingon is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asian Buddhism. It is a form of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism and is sometimes called "Tōmitsu" (東密 lit. "Esoteric uddhismof Tō- ...

sect of

Japanese Buddhism Buddhism was first established in Japan in the 6th century CE. Most of the Japanese Buddhists belong to new schools of Buddhism which were established in the Kamakura period (1185－1333). During the Edo period (1603–1868), Buddhism was cont ...

. Its ''

honzon , sometimes referred to as a Gohonzon ( or ), is the enshrined main image or principal deity in Japanese Buddhism. The buddha, bodhisattva, or mandala image is located in either a temple or a household butsudan. The image can be either a statue ...

'' is a ''Juichimen Kannon Bosatsu'' .

External links

Entry on the Bandō Sanjūsankasho site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shofuku-Ji (Odawara) Buddhist temples in Kanagawa Prefecture Shingon Buddhism