Kongobu-ji

Koyasan is a sacred place of Japanese Buddhism, opened at the beginning of the Heian period by Kobo Daishi, also known as Kukai. The name Kongobu-ji is said to have been taken by the Daishi from the title of a sutra. When people speak of the head temple Kongobu-ji, they mean not only its main hall complex but the whole of Koyasan, and the entire mountaintop is treated as the temple's precinct. There are 117 sub-temples on the mountain, and 51 of them offer lodging to visitors as temple inns.

The Danjo Garan is the place the Daishi began to develop first when he opened Koyasan, and it is said to represent the world of the Womb Realm Mandala. Together with Okunoin, where the Daishi entered eternal meditation, it has long been a center of faith. The Konpon Daito pagoda is said to have taken two generations, the Daishi and his successor Shinzen, to complete, from 816 to around 887, and it is regarded as the first pagoda of the tahoto type in Japan. A great fire in 1843 burned the complex except for the West Pagoda, and the present Kondo is its seventh rebuilding, completed in 1932.

The National Treasure Fudo-do Hall was built in 1197 by the monk Gyosho, at the wish of Hachijo-in, a daughter of the retired Emperor Toba. It first stood in the Isshin-in valley and was later moved to the Garan. The present building is a rebuilding from the first half of the 14th century, and the database of the Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to the Late Kamakura period. It is a single-story hall three bays wide and four bays deep, with a hip-and-gable roof covered in cypress bark. It was designated a National Treasure in 1952.

Each of the four corners of the Fudo-do has a different form, which tradition explains by saying that four carpenters each built one corner as they pleased. Walk around the hall and compare the corners. It is thought to have begun as a hall for Amida, and later Fudo Myoo became its main image, attended by the Eight Youthful Attendants. These statues, well known as works of Unkei, are now kept in the Reihokan museum. Visitors are encouraged to pay their respects at the halls of the Garan in the order set out in a text handed down on Koyasan, the Ryodan Nyodo Shidai.

Beyond the Garan, there is much more to see on the mountain. Twelve buildings of the Kongobu-ji main complex, including the Great Main Hall, were designated Important Cultural Properties in January 2024, and in December of the same year 11 buildings of the Garan, including the Kondo and the Konpon Daito, followed. At Okunoin, an approach about 2 kilometers long runs from Ichinohashi bridge to the mausoleum, lined with more than 200,000 gravestones and monuments under tall cedars. The Daimon gate at the entrance to the mountain was rebuilt in 1705 and stands 25.1 meters high. To reach the mountaintop, change to the Koyasan Cable Car at Gokurakubashi Station on the Nankai Koya Line.