Fujisawa-shuku


Fujisawa-shuku was the sixth of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It is located in the present-day city of Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.

History

Fujisawa-shuku was established as a post station on the Tōkaidō in 1601, but did not become the sixth post station until Totsuka-juku was later established. Before the establishment of the Tōkaidō, Fujisawa flourished as a “temple town” for Shōjōkō-ji, also known as "Yugyō-ji", the head temple of the Ji-sect of Japanese Buddhism. It was also located on a fork along the Odawara Kaidō, which connected Odawara Castle and its two supporting castles, Edo Castle and Hachiōji Castle during the period of the Late Hōjō clan. The gate of post station toward Edo was to the east of Yugyō-ji, and the gate towards Kyoto was on the western side of the modern Odakyū Enoshima Line; these boundaries mark the general limits of Fujisawa-juku.
It was said that there were over 1,000 buildings in the post town, including honjin, hatago, etc. Up until 1745, the honjin for Fujisawa-shuku was the Horiuchi Honjin, but after that, the Maita Honjin was used. At the temple of Eishō-ji, there are a number of graves of the meshimori onna who worked at the local hatago.
The Fujisawa Palace was built at Fujisawa-shuku in the early days of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The first three Shōgun from 1831–1834 depicts a village with a bridge. In the background is the temple of Yugyō-ji on a hill, and in the foreground is a torii with a path leading to Enoshima. The bridge is crowded with pilgrims, and four blind men, apparently on their way to the Enoshima Benten Shrine are following each other alongside a stream.

Neighboring post towns

;Tōkaidō