Sendai Tourism: Shifuku Temple

In the third year of Genki, Date Terumune invited Koya Soetsu from Mino to revive and establish the temple. With the relocation of the Date clan, the temple moved from Iwadeyama, through Sendai Yachikoji, to Kitayama, and is now widely known as the Hydrangea Temple. Located in one of the castle towns of Sendai, the temple town stretches from the east of Ise-doyama to the southern foothills of the hills extending to Kashimazaki in Tsutsumimachi, in the former Kitayama Town (now Kitayama, Aoba Ward, and others). At the eastern end of the town, at the end of Kimachi-dori, is Kakuhanji, the family temple of Terumune. Adjacent to the west of the temple grounds is Jiuunzan Shifukuji, a temple revived by Terumune who invited Koya Soetsu from Mino, and reestablished as a temple of the Rinzai sect Myoshinji school. The Kannon Hall of Shifukuji was relocated from Jokoji, where the second lord Tadamune's ashes were enshrined. It houses the sacred Kannon, which is said to be the guardian deity of Fujiwara no Hidehira's third son, Izumi Saburo Tadahira, and is the third stop on the Sendai 33 Kannon pilgrimage. Additionally, the temple grounds are home to the 'Shifukuji Koyozan' and 'Shifukuji Seven Fragrant Magnolias,' which are designated as preserved trees by Sendai City.