Bandō Sanjūsankasho

The Bandō Sanjūsankasho (坂東三十三箇所) ("The Bandō 33 Kannon Pilgrimage") is a series of 33 Buddhist temples in Eastern Japan sacred to Kannon. Bandō is the old name for what is now the Kantō region, used in this case because the temples are all in the Prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama, Tokyo, Gunma, Ibaraki, Tochigi and Chiba. As is the case with all such circuits, each location has a rank, and pilgrims believe that visiting them all in order is an act of great religious merit.

Started by Minamoto no Yoritomo and his son Sanetomo, the Bandō Sanjūsankasho is just one of 70 different Kannon pilgrimage circuits existing in Japan, each including 33 temples because the goddess is believed to have 33 different manifestations. Sugimoto-dera in Kamakura is number one, Zushi's Gandenji's is number two, An'yō-in in Kamakura is the number three, the famous Hasedera in Hase number four, and so on. From its beginning at Sugimotodera to its end in Chiba's Nagodera, the circuit is over 1300 km long. Even though women were allowed to pray at individual temples, the circuit was originally reserved to male pilgrims. Now however most of the pilgrims are women. Pilgrims leave behind a slip of paper or a sticker as a proof of their visit, and many of these can be seen plastered on temple walls and pillars.