Tokorozawa · JP

Pokkuri-san

Pokkuri-san is the affectionate name for a small, locally venerated Jizō statue housed in the Kaizan-dō (founder's hall) of Konjō-in, the Shingon temple in Kamiyamaguchi better known as Yamaguchi Kannon. Reached from Seibu-Kyōjō-mae Station on the Seibu Sayama Line, the temple is set along the Sayama Hills by the Yamaguchi reservoir, and its pin on the map preserves the name of this one curious, quietly revered image among a complex far larger than it first appears. The temple itself is the kind of place that rewards a slow walk around the back of the main hall, where a red pagoda crowns a low hill, a tunnel of copied Shikoku pilgrimage stations runs under the grounds, and rows of Tibetan-style prayer wheels line the walls. Pokkuri-san sits at the heart of all this, a tiny devotional focus inside a site packed with art, legend and architecture.