Shogun Jizo- Japanese GodDeity"Victorious General Jizō"
Also known as: Shōgun Jizō, Shōgun Jizō Bosatsu, and 勝軍地蔵
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Description
When Sakanoue no Tamuramaro marched against the Emishi in the north, Jizō appeared to him as an armored warrior on horseback, guiding him to victory. The gentle guardian of the dead, reforged as a god of war, invoked by samurai before battle throughout the medieval age.
Mythology & Lore
The Warrior on Horseback
In the early ninth century, Sakanoue no Tamuramaro led his forces into the northeastern reaches of Honshū against the Emishi. Temple tradition holds that as Tamuramaro pushed into unfamiliar territory, Jizō appeared to him: not in a monk's robes, but in full armor on horseback, halberd in hand and a victory banner at his back. The armored figure guided Tamuramaro through the campaign. When the fighting was over, Tamuramaro established a cult to the warrior form of the bodhisattva.
Samurai adopted Shōgun Jizō as their own. His statues wore armor and rode war horses, and warriors prayed to him before marching out.
The Eve of Honnō-ji
Shōgun Jizō's cult found its seat on Mount Atago, the peak northwest of Kyoto. The mountain's shrine network spread across Japan, and warriors climbed to pray there before campaigns.
The most famous visit came in 1582. The warlord Akechi Mitsuhide climbed Mount Atago on the night before he turned on his lord Oda Nobunaga. At the shrine he composed a renga verse that would later be read as a declaration of what he was about to do. Then he descended the mountain, marched his army through the night, and surrounded Honnō-ji at dawn. Nobunaga died in the burning temple. The warrior bodhisattva's shrine was the last place Mitsuhide prayed before the most notorious betrayal of the Sengoku era.
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