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Temple 34, Tanema-ji

The Temple of Sowing Seeds

Temple 34, Tanema-ji

Tanema-ji is temple No. 34 on the Shikoku pilgrimage. Its name means ‘seed planting’. Kūkai is said to have planted seeds he brought back from China at this temple.

What to see
After entering through the temple gate, there’s a belfry. Turning right in front of the Kōmyō Hall you see Mizuko Jizō Hall on the left. Here there’s a seated stone statue of Mizuko Jizō surrounded by one thousand Jizō statues. The Koyasu Kannon Hall looks like a bell tower. There’s a bronze standing statue of Koyasu Kannon surrounded by ladles with the bottoms removed. Further along is the Ishizuchi Shrine, a storehouse and temple office on the right, and the Daishi Hall beyond that. The concrete main hall stands at the far end. It houses a statue of Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of healing, shown only on March 8 every year.

Adjacent to the temple is Kasuga Shrine, located on a higher level up from the stone torii gate by the belfry in front of the temple. The worship and main halls are in different styles. Before the separation of Shintō and Buddhism in the early Meiji period, this site was within the precincts of an earlier iteration of Tanema-ji Temple.

Within the precinct is a mini pilgrimage of so-called boat-shaped stone Buddha statues representing the deities of the 88 pilgrimage temples.

History
In the 6th century,
the prince of Baekje in Korea offered Japan a large number of sutras as well as Buddhist priests and temple builders. They came to Japan during the reign of Emperor Yōmei (585-87) to build Shitennoji Temple in Ōsaka. When the temple was completed and they were sailing home, they were threatened by a powerful storm off the coast of Tosa. They made a port call close to where Tanema-ji Temple stands and carved a seated statue of Yakushi Nyorai to pray for safety at sea, enshrining it at this site, which developed into today’s temple.

More than 200 years later, Kūkai returned from Tang Dynasty China and visited this area. He expanded the temple with the statue of Yakushi Nyorai as the principal image and planted the seeds of various grains he brought back from China. He named the temple after this act of planting seeds.

During the Tenryaku era (947-957), Emperor Murakami sent an imperial envoy to bestow upon the temple an imperial tablet with the name of the temple. Tanema-ji was also an important place of worship for the successive feudal lords of the Tosa domain. The temple was abolished in 1871 due to the separation of Shintōism and Buddhism, and Kasuga Shrine was built on the site. The main image was moved to the nearby Ikeda Kannon Hall, but the temple was rebuilt at its current location in 1880.

Legends
The principal image of the temple is Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of healing, and by extension, a deity of safe childbirth. Pregnant women come to the temple for two nights and three days to pray for safe delivery, and they receive a ladle with the bottom removed symbolising the smooth flow of water. They display the ladle in the birthing room, and return it to the temple if they have a safe delivery. The name of the temple may also be related to fertility. 

 

Information

Name in Japanese: 種間寺

Pronunciation: tanema-ji

Address: 72 Akiyama, Haruno, Kochi 781-0321

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