Our temple conducts the "Fudou-Miyouou(Acala) Fire Ritual" and the "Daisei-Kangiten (Ganesh) Anointing Ritual" every day, so please contact us with any requests for these rituals.
About Sououin
Temple Guide
Before the Meiji period, our temple was a part of the neighboring Sakurayama Hachiman Shrine, and was called “Tiyoukiyu Temple”. But the Meiji government abolished this temple in the first year of the Meiji era.
Therefore, the Buddhist priest, Sikio Sakurayama, (桜山識雄和尚) who was in charge of this temple and served as both Shinto priest and Buddhist monk at this temple in those days, submitted a request to the public administrations office (Jinya) that the temple should be reinstated and successfully saved this temple.
The precinct where the central hall is at present was an estate of Sououin at Kouyasan, which was the family temple for the warlord of “Takayama castle” (Nagatika Kanamori).
Therefore, the priest Sikio Sakurayama (桜山識雄和尚) was given by Kouyasan, the right to use the name - Sououin, and was also given
the three Amida-sanzon (阿弥陀三尊; 現在脇侍), the Buddha in Nirvana parchment (涅槃図) and so on which were originally donated to Sououin at Koyasan, by Kanamori Nagatika. And in Meiji 14 (in 1881) he reinstate the former temple as Sououin on the estate land.
Tiyoukiyu Temple was situated in an unlucky direction in relation to the public administration office (Jinya), so, in order to fend off bad luck and safeguard security among the people of Takayama and so on, the temple enshrined Acala (Fudou Miyouou).
Therefore, now we offer devotions to Acala as the principal image, along with the sect founder - Kobo Daishi, the deities Kangi-ten (Ganesh - 歓喜天), Sei-kannon (聖観音), and others. And at every festival of Acala (the 28th of the month), we pray to the image while burning sticks of wood - goma (護摩).
Our temple enshrined a two-metre high stone statue of Kobo Daishi on Kobo Mountain, a place that we can climb to from the back of our main hall ; from there we can look out over Takayama.
At every Kobo Daishi festival (the 21st of the month), this place is crowded with many followers.
Our temple has two Enku wooden carvings (円空仏). One is Inari-sonten (稲荷尊天), the other is Yakushi-niyorai (薬師如来). These are two of the figures Enku carved when he stayed at the “Tiyoukiyu Temple”.
Esoteric Buddhism,