Toyokawa Inari

Toyokawa Dakini Shinten (豊川吒枳尼真天), the guardian deity (chinju) of Toyokawa Inari

The temple was founded in 1441 by the Buddhist priest Tōkai Gieki (東海義易) (1412–1497), a sixth generation disciple of Kangan Giin, who was a disciple of Dōgen, the founder of the Japanese Sōtō school.

In 1264, Giin traveled to Song China in order to present Dōgen's recorded sayings, the Eihei Kōroku, to monks in the Caodong lineage of Dōgen's teacher Tiantong Rujing. Legend claims that as Giin was about to leave China in 1267, he experienced a vision of a goddess riding on a white fox, bearing a jewel on one hand and a shoulder pole laden with bundles of rice on the other. The goddess identified herself as Dakiniten and vowed to become Giin's protector, teaching him the mantra On shira batta niri un sowaka (唵尸羅婆陀尼黎吽娑婆訶), traditionally explained as meaning: "When this spell is chanted, the faith in me reaches everywhere, and by the true power of the Buddhist precepts, evil and misfortune will be abolished and luck and wisdom attained; suffering removed and comfort achieved, and pain transformed into delight." Upon his return to Japan, Giin was said to have made a statue of Dakiniten based on this vision, which was passed down over the generations before ending up in the hands of Gieki, who enshrined both it and an image of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Kannon) at the temple he established. The Dakiniten of Toyokawa, who was designated as the guardian deity (chinju) of the temple complex, became widely revered as a deity who averts calamity and brings relief and prosperity to her devotees.[1][2]

The temple was patronized in the Sengoku period by Imagawa Yoshimoto, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu, and by pilgrims from the merchant classes in the Edo period through the modern period.[1]

Most of the temple was rebuilt in the Meiji period or later; however, the Sanmon dates from 1536 and is the oldest existent buildings in the complex. The Main Hall was reconstructed in the Tempo period (1830-1843), and several other buildings also date from the Edo period. In terms of registered cultural properties, the temple has a wooden Kamakura period statue of Jizō Bosatsu which is a National Important Cultural Property.

The Toyokawa Inari combines with the Mino Thirty-three Kannon in Gifu Prefecture, the Owari Thirty-three Kannon in western Aichi Prefecture, and the Mikawa Thirty-three Kannon (三河三十三観音) in eastern Aichi Prefecture to form a pilgrimage route known as the Tōkai Hundred Kannon.[3]

• Dakini
• Inari Shrine
• Tōkai Hundred Kannon
  • Mino Thirty-three Kannon
  • Owari Thirty-three Kannon
• Glossary of Japanese Buddhism
• Glossary of Shinto

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• Smyers, Karen Ann. The fox and the jewel: shared and private meanings in contemporary Japanese. University of Hawaii Press (1998). ISBN 0-8248-2102-5