Chiseibō Temple Site

This location marks the site of Chiseibō, one of the three Murayama lodges.

Chiseibō was a shugen lodge said to have carried the blood of the Kitabatake, governors of Ise Province, and a record also says that it was opened by Zon’yo Shōnin in 1380 (Kōryaku 2). Among the three lodges, it served as bettō of the Dainichi Hall, the central building of Fujisan Kōbōji.

The name Chiseibō first appears in written records in a confirmation document that Imagawa Yoshimoto addressed to Sanjobō in 1551 (Tenbun 20). At the end of the text, an instruction notes that, as before, Chiseibō’s opinion should be followed, so real authority seems to have rested with Chiseibō. This document was handed down within the Kitabatake family, a branch of the lodge. Chiseibō also kept documents from Shōgoin monastery along with vermilion-seal documents from Imagawa Yoshimoto and his son Ujizane. By the Sengoku period, it already belonged to Shōgoin and was recognized as a lodge of yamabushi serving on Mt. Fuji. In 1591 (Tenshō 19), Toyotomi Hideyoshi confirmed Chiseibō’s holdings of 141 koku of land in Murayama, Kannari, Kikiriyama, and other areas, and in 1641 (Kan’ei 18), Tokugawa Iemitsu granted it more than 95 koku by vermilion seal.

Pilgrims who arrived to make the climb stayed at the Murayama lodges, received purification and prayers, and were guided up the Murayama trail to the summit by yamabushi. Some pilgrims traveled from western provinces such as Iga. Climbers paid a mountain fee, which on routes other than the Ōmiya trail was also called rokudōsen, and this money supported the lodges and Kōbōji.

Chiseibō came to an end during the Meiji era with the separation of Shinto and Buddhism and the ban on Shugendō. According to Sengen Jinja no Rekishi, after the Restoration the lodge’s family adopted the surname Fuji, while a second son continued practicing Shugendō under the name Kitabatake. The 1923 (Taishō 12) petition to raise the rank of Murayama Sengen Shrine also records that the family came from the Minamoto line and took the name Fuji after becoming Shinto priests in the Meiji era. The same petition says of Jōren’in, a great sendatsu ordered during the Jōkyō era to take charge of Chiseibō as well, that his ancestor was a grandson of Kitabatake Tomochika, the younger brother of Ise governor Kitabatake Tomonori. The memorial tablet of a Kitabatake priest belonging to the Jōren’in house, who died in 1943 (Shōwa 18) at the age of 86, reads “Shō-daisendatsu”. The site of the lodge is now occupied by a car park and other buildings.