was the forty-fourth of the fifty-three stations (''

shukuba were post stations during the Edo period in Japan, generally located on one of the Edo Five Routes or one of its sub-routes. They were also called ''shuku-eki'' (宿駅). These post stations (or "post towns") were places where travelers could r ...

'') of the Tōkaidō connecting

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

with

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

Japan. It was located in former

Ise Province was a province of Japan in the area of Japan that is today includes most of modern Mie Prefecture. Ise bordered on Iga, Kii, Mino, Ōmi, Owari, Shima, and Yamato Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was . History The name of Ise appears i ...

in what is now part of the city of Suzuka,

Mie Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Mie Prefecture has a population of 1,781,948 () and has a geographic area of . Mie Prefecture is bordered by Gifu Prefecture to the north, Shiga Prefecture and Kyoto Prefecture to ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

History

Ishiyakushi-juku was established in 1616, as part of the

's Tōkaidō. Originally, there had been no post stations between Yokkaichi-juku and

Kameyama-juku was the forty-sixth of the fifty-three stations (''shukuba'') of the Tōkaidō connecting Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. It was located in former Ise Province in what is now the center of the city of Kameyama, Mie Prefecture, Japan. His ...

, so Ishiyakushi-juku was formed with about 180 buildings at its inception.Nippon-Kichi
Nippon-Kichi. Accessed October 27, 2007. The Ozawa family managed the ''

honjin The ''honjin'' at Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku.">Ōhara-shuku.html" ;"title="Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku">Inaba Kaidō's Ōhara-shuku. is the Japanese word for an inn for government officials, generally located in post stations (''shukuba'') dur ...

'' in the town and kept many records, which are still available today in a local archives museum. The post station received its name from the nearby

Buddhist temple A Buddhist temple or Buddhist monastery is the place of worship for Buddhists, the followers of Buddhism. They include the structures called vihara, chaitya, stupa, wat and pagoda in different regions and languages. Temples in Buddhism represen ...

of Ishiyakushi-ji, which claims to have been founded in 726 AD by the ''

shugendō is a highly syncretic religion, a body of ascetic practices that originated in the Nara Period of Japan having evolved during the 7th century from an amalgamation of beliefs, philosophies, doctrines and ritual systems drawn from local fol ...

'' monk

Taichō was a shugendō monk in Nara period Japan. He was raised in Echizen Province, which was in the southern portion of present-day Fukui Prefecture. He was the second son of Mikami Yasuzumi (三神安角). He is said to be the first person to reach ...

. According to the temple legend,

Kūkai Kūkai (; 27 July 774 – 22 April 835Kūkai was born in 774, the 5th year of the Hōki era; his exact date of birth was designated as the fifteenth day of the sixth month of the Japanese lunar calendar, some 400 years later, by the Shingon sec ...

carved an image of

Yakushi Nyorai Bhaiṣajyaguru ( sa, भैषज्यगुरु, zh, t= , ja, 薬師仏, ko, 약사불, bo, སངས་རྒྱས་སྨན་བླ), or ''Bhaishajyaguru'', formally Bhaiṣajya-guru-vaiḍūrya-prabhā-rāja ("Medicine Master ...

on a huge boulder that was found in the forest, and Taichō later built a temple around this image. A settlement gradually developed around the temple. Per the 1843 guidebook issued by the , the town had a population of 991 in 180 houses, with three ''

'', and 15 ''

hatago were Edo period lodgings for travelers at '' shukuba'' (post stations) along the national highways, including the Edo Five Routes The , sometimes translated as "Five Highways", were the five centrally administered routes, or ''kaidō'', that ...

'', indicating the small scale of the settlement. Of the 180 household, 130 were classified as "farmers". As it had to compete with nearby

Shōno-juku was the forty-fifth of the 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō, fifty-three stations (''shukuba'') of the Tōkaidō (road), Tōkaidō connecting Edo with Kyoto in Edo period Japan. It was located in former Ise Province in what is now the city of Suzuka ...

, the post town never grew. It was 398.2 kilometers from Edo. Near the site of the ''honjin'' is the preserved house of

Nobutsuna Sasaki was a ''tanka'' poet and scholar of the Nara and Heian periods of Japanese literature. He was active during the Shōwa period of Japan. Early life Sasaki was born in what is now part of Suzuka city, Mie prefecture. He was considered a child pro ...

, a famous ''

tanka is a genre of classical Japanese poetry and one of the major genres of Japanese literature. Etymology Originally, in the time of the ''Man'yōshū'' (latter half of the eighth century AD), the term ''tanka'' was used to distinguish "short poem ...

'' poet and scholar who was born in 1872.

Ishiyakushi-juku in ''The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō''

Utagawa Hiroshige Utagawa Hiroshige (, also ; ja, 歌川広重 ), born Andō Tokutarō (; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format l ...

's ''

ukiyo-e Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...

'' ''Hōeidō'' edition print of Ishiyakushi-juku dates from 1833 -1834. The print does depicts the temple in a grove of trees on the left and a village on the right, with the

Suzuka Mountains are a mountain range running through Mie Prefecture and along the borders of Gifu and Shiga prefectures in central Japan. The tallest peak in the range is Mount Oike at . In spite of its height, Mount Oike is not the most visited mountain; that ...

in the background. Bales of rice indicate that the setting is autumn, and reflect the rural character of the post town, and the closed temple gate indicate that the time is dusk.

Neighboring Post Towns

;Tōkaidō : Yokkaichi-juku – Ishiyakushi-juku –

References

External links

THE WOODBLOCK PRINTS OF UTAGAWA HIROSHIGE The Great Tōkaidō
{{Tōkaidō Stations of the Tōkaidō Stations of the Tōkaidō in Mie Prefecture Ise Province Suzuka, Mie

History

Ishiyakushi-juku in ''The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō''

Neighboring Post Towns

References

Further reading

External links