1-31-2 Kamitakada, Nakano ward. In a corner where temples stand in a row along Waseda-dōri is Hozenji, a Sōtō Zen temple. Oguri Kōzukenosuke's grave is not here. Even so, this was the Oguri family temple in Edo. The generations before the end of the shogunate were buried here, one after another.
From Ushigome Tōridera-chō to Kamitakada
The temple was founded in 1593. The founding priest was a cousin of Takeda Shingen. Because the third shogun, Iemitsu, gave the temple a fierce dog like a lion, it is also called Shishiji, the lion temple. The tablet “Shishikutsu” hanging at the front of the main hall is in the hand of the Edo-period priest Gesshū. Through the founding priest being Shingen's cousin, there are many graves of descendants of Shingen's retainers as well.
Its place was formerly Ushigome Tōridera-chō — also written Ushigome Yokodera-chō — and it moved to where it now stands in 1906. The Oguri residence was at Kanda Surugadai, the family temple at Ushigome. On a map of Edo it is less than a ri to the north-west, across the Kanda River.
Nakano ward, official: Nakano ward's designated tourism resources (Hozenji, Shishiji)
From Masanobu, the fifth
The note on the family line attached to the Oguri Nikki says it plainly.
From Masanobu's time the family temple was Hozenji at Ushigome in Edo. The generations are buried here
Masanobu, the fifth of the line, was first called Shōjirō; he served Hidetada, distinguished himself at the siege of Ueda and in the Osaka campaign, and was made captain of archers. With the additions to his original holding he had 2,500 koku. He died on the nineteenth day of the first month of 1658, at seventy-four. His name in religion was Kōdaiji Ryōei, and he was buried at Hozenji in Ushigome Tōridera-chō. Following Ōtsubo Motoji's chronology, each of the generations after him is written down in turn as “buried at Hozenji, Ushigome Tōridera-chō”. The Kansei Chōshū Shokafu also sets this down as the main house's family temple.
Only the founder, Tadamasa, is buried at Fumon'in in Ōmiya; from the fifth generation on it is Hozenji. What is cut on the “grave of the generations of the house of Oguri” at Zōshigaya cemetery is likewise only the family from Kōzukenosuke on. The names of the family from before the end of the shogunate are on neither stone.
→ The “grave of the generations of the house of Oguri” at Zōshigaya cemetery ／ Fumon'in — the temple of the founder of the house of Oguri
The temple that appears month by month in the Oguri Nikki
How close this temple was to the daily life of the house of Oguri can be seen by opening the diaries. In the entries for the days he was in Edo, a note that a retainer was sent to worship in his place on the anniversary of a forebear's death appears almost every month.
Item: it being the anniversary of Chūkō-in's death, Yūzaemon went out to Hozenji to worship in my place
Those who went in his place were the steward Mukasa Yūzaemon, Kendayū, Tsukamoto Masahiko, Kōzō and Kōshi. Gathering the posthumous titles that appear in the diaries: Chūkō-in, Kakushō-in, Kōdaiji, Kakuō, Shōkaku-in, Teikyō-in, Suishō-in, Zuiun-in, Kōju-in, Honkyō-in, Hōju-in, Jikō-in, Gankai-in. The entry “it being the month of Kōdaiji's death, Kendayū went out to Hozenji to worship in my place and held the service” stands under the nineteenth day of the first month, which is the anniversary of the death of Masanobu, the fifth.
At the New Year and at the year's end his mother went herself: “my mother went out to Hozenji for the New Year”; “my mother went to Hozenji to worship at the year's end”. There were days when his mother and Masako went together on the anniversary of Chūkō-in's death. Tadamasa himself went to the temple before going up to the castle on some days: “from five in the morning worshipped at Hozenji, home at five”.
On the day of the service for the thirteenth anniversary of Chūkō-in's death, he went to Hozenji from five in the morning, finished the service, went straight on up to the castle and left it a little after yatsu-han. His mother went to worship in company with Lady Shunkō-in, and Lady Shunkō-in went home directly from the temple, the diaries say.
The temple's name stands in the household accounts too: “New Year offering to Hozenji”; “offering to Hozenji: one jō six shaku of brown hakama lining, the cost of”; “offering for the service, given up to Hozenji”. There is also a line: “offering, the abbot of Hozenji having died”. When the abbot died, an offering was made. The dealings of a parishioner family remain just as they were, as entries of expenditure.
→ The year the accounts went well into surplus on the embassy allowance ／ Mukasa Ginsuke
His father Tadataka's ashes, divided
The “Chūkō-in” that appears again and again in the diaries is the name in religion of Tadamasa's father, Tadataka. Tadataka was born the fourth son of the hatamoto Nakagawa Hida-no-kami Tadateru and came into the house of Oguri as a son-in-law. He succeeded in the tenth month of 1813, became inspector of the western keep in 1842, captain of the guard in 1847, and commissioner of Niigata in 1854.
He held the commissionership only a year. On the twenty-eighth day of the seventh month of 1855 he died of illness at his official residence in Niigata, at fifty-eight. His ashes were buried at Hōonji in Teramachi, Niigata, and part of them was taken from there to Hozenji at Ushigome. Tadamasa succeeded to the headship and took the name Matakichi on the twenty-second day of the tenth month of that year.
Because the ashes were divided, the duties to two temples went on side by side. In the expenditure in the diaries, “Bon money to Hōonji in Niigata”, “year-end gift to Hōonji in Niigata” and “given up to Hōonji in Niigata on the increase of stipend” appear again and again. On coming back from the embassy to the United States there is: “made an offering before the spirit at Hōonji, on the change of post and on returning to the capital from America”. He laid the report of his going round the world and coming back to Edo before his father's spirit in Niigata.
→ His father Tadataka's death, and the succession ／ Home by the Atlantic and the Cape of Good Hope
Why Tōzenji is called “the family temple”
Say “Oguri Kōzukenosuke's family temple” now and it means Tōzenji at Gonda, Kurabuchi-machi, Takasaki, in Gunma prefecture. Why, when the main house's family temple is Hozenji in Edo? Because Tadamasa withdrew there, was cut down there and was buried there. The temple that has the grave, the relics and the service before the grave came in the end to carry the duty of the family temple.
The three temples each have a different part. Hozenji is the main house's family temple, where the generations from Masanobu, the fifth, lie. Fumon'in holds the grave of the founder, Tadamasa, and became a family temple when the land at Taisei passed to the branch house of Oguri Niemon, which kept the founder's grave. Tōzenji is where Tadamasa, his son and his retainers are buried, and it goes on honouring Oguri to this day. It is not that one of the three is the right one.
→ Tōzenji — the temple where Oguri Kōzukenosuke lies ／ The sixth day of the intercalary fourth month: the end at the riverbed at Mizunuma
If you go
Kamitakada 1-chōme, along Waseda-dōri. Nakano ward lists it among the ward's tourism resources. It is a working temple with a working cemetery, so please go in the manner proper to worship there. The “Shishikutsu” tablet at the front of the main hall can be looked up at from outside.
Sources: Oguri Nikki (the Oguri diaries), Gunma Prefecture Historical Materials vol. 7; Ōtsubo Motoji, Oguri Kōzukenosuke Tadamasa Kakei oyobi Ryaku-nenpu (the genealogy and short chronology of Oguri Kōzukenosuke Tadamasa), Oguri Kō Kenshōkai, 1957; Ōtsubo Sadakata and Hozumi Odoroki, Oguri Kōzukenosuke, Oguri Kōzukenosuke o Shinobu Kai, 1975; Sakamoto Fujiyoshi, Oguri Kōzukenosuke no Shōgai (the life of Oguri Kōzukenosuke), Kōdansha, 1987; Koitabashi Ryōhei, Oguri Kōzukenosuke Ichizoku no Higeki (the tragedy of the Oguri family), and Tatsunami, the journal of the memorial society; Nakano ward, “designated tourism resources”.