I saw a kingfisher in the river near Oninashi station. It was very beautiful and bright blue, but it ran away soon… too bad. The henro route from the station to Ichinomiya-ji was winding through a residential area, and even though there’re some landmarks, I got lost several times… The landmark don’t show the shortest way, i.e walk straight along the river 😉

The reason why I wanted to go straight to the temple was that I wondered if I could arrive at Ichinomiya-ji before 17:00 when the stamp office would close. But in the end, I could get to Ichinomiya-ji at 17:00 just in time, so I decided to go to stamp office first then worship later.

After receiving the temple stamp, I walked around and went to the main gate, where the Nio statue and the straw sandals were placed on the same front side again, just like at Negoro-ji.

The temple is rather small and the precinct is compact, but the building retains a nice old atmosphere that is attractive.

This “The cauldron of Hell” has an interesting story like below.

Once upon a time, there was a mean and sickly old woman who lived near this temple. One day, she heard from a neighbor that there was a shrine in the temple where you could hear the boiling sound of the cauldron of hell, and if a person who did bad things put his head in, he would be stuck. So she put her head in the cauldron to see if it was possible.

As soon as she did, the door closed and the sound of hell could be heard from below. She rushed to pull her head out, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not. She finally got scared and said, “Please forgive me for what I have done. I will not be mean to anymore.” After many tearful pleas, the door opened and the head came out.

After that, she changed her mind. Her body became completely healthy and she lived in harmony with her neighbors. This shrine may have been built by the great Kobo-Daishi to give people a beautiful mind and a healthy body.

Shingo-zan Daiho-in Ichinomiya-ji