Tozenji Temple 74 on the Kyushu pilgrimage

 

Tozenji Temple, number 74 on the Shingon Kyushu pilgrimage, is in Nakazatacho, a rural community north of Sasebo in Nagasaki.

On the previous day's walk I visited temple 66, also called Tozenji, to the east of Sasebo.

The temple was established here in 968, but its origin can be said to lie almost three hundred years earlier in tye very early 8th century when the famous mink Gyoki visited the area and carved a statue of yakushi Nyorai.

That statue was enshrined on top of the mountain in what is now the temples Okunoin and the statue is the honzon of the temple.

I visited very early in the morning and there was no one about so I didn't go inside and see the statue.

The temple grounds are dominated by a huge Camphor tree.

Thought to be 600 years old, this ancient tree has a trunk circumference of 8 meters and is twenty meters high.

The previous post was about the first temple I visited on this, the 67th day of my walk, Korin-in.