Important cultural property

An Important Cultural Property at Kongobuji. This Kamakura image depicts Niu Myojin, the goddess who by legend gave Mount Koya to Kukai, fusing Shinto and Buddhism.

An Important Cultural Property at Kongobuji, from Yuan-dynasty China. Tradition calls it Yakushi, the Medicine Buddha, but its official title names only a buddha.

A Kamakura silk painting from Shōchi-in on Mount Kōya: Mañjuśrī with eight topknots and raised sword, ringed by eight youths, the icon of a rite to avert disaster.

A Kamakura silk painting at Zenjū-in on Mount Kōya: the legend of Kūkai appearing as Dainichi Nyorai while debating the eight Buddhist schools before Emperor Saga.

A Kamakura silk painting at Kōdai-in on Mount Kōya: Bishamonten, armoured guardian of the north with a treasure pagoda, worshipped for protection and good fortune.

A Kamakura silk painting at Shōchi-in on Mount Kōya: Fugen Enmei, the esoteric bodhisattva of long life, central icon of a rite to extend lifespan and worldly gain.

An early Kamakura nirvana painting at Jōkyō-ji in Arida-gawa, Wakayama, breaking convention with a great canopy and dragon king, from the Myōe-linked Saishō-ji.

This Kamakura scroll at Gobo Jakujo-in on Mount Koya shows the Immovable Wisdom King in flame with three attendant boys, by tradition ascribed to the monk Gangyo.

The Red Fudo of Myoo-in on Mount Koya is one of Japan's Three Great Fudo, a painting linked by legend to the monk Enchin and carried into exile by Emperor Go-Daigo.

Painted by Kakue in 1315, this Kokoku-ji portrait honours Hotto Kokushi, the Zen monk who brought Kinzanji miso and the shakuhachi flute from Song China to Japan.

At Jison-in, the Women's Koya, this worn late-Heian scroll is the only single-figure Maitreya painting from the period, its halo ringed by forty-nine Buddhas.

An iron-bound wooden grain measure dated 1396, the Kōya masu set the rice tax for Mount Kōya's Kanshōfu Estate and is Japan's oldest standard measure of known date.

A 6,285-volume Korean Goryeo Buddhist canon at Koyasan, dedicated in 1599 by Ishida Mitsunari for his late mother and kept in an octagonal revolving bookcase.

An Important Cultural Property tachi by master swordsmith Sanenaga, one of the "Three Masters of Osafune," housed at the historic Nokami Hachimangu Shrine in Wakayama's Kimino Town.

Discover the Zushi-iri Kurikara Ryūken at Ryūkō-in on Mount Kōya in Wakayama Prefecture — an Important Cultural Property comprising a sculpted Kurikara dragon sword housed in its own dedicated reliquary cabinet. Tradition holds that this sacred sword was used by Kōbō Daishi Kūkai during his renowned rain-praying ritual at Shinsen-en in 824. Explore the symbolism of the Kurikara dragon, the artistry of the reliquary, the legends linking Kūkai with dragon kings, viewing information at the Kōyasan Reihōkan museum, and nearby attractions across this sacred mountain.

Held on Mount Koya, these three handwritten scrolls of the core esoteric sutras carry rare Heian reading marks prized as evidence for the history of Japanese.

An Important Cultural Property at Ryūkōin on Mount Kōya: a 1058 Heian manuscript of the Mahāvairocana Sūtra, a foundational scripture of Shingon esoteric Buddhism.

A Muromachi tachi by Kagenaga of Inaba Province, given to Susa Shrine in Arida, Wakayama, by the shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune in 1721 and kept as a shrine treasure.

A Kamakura tachi by Kunitoki of the Higo Enju school, given to Kishu Toshogu by the shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune in 1721 and held at the Wakayama Prefectural Museum.

A Momoyama tachi signed Kunihiro, generally identified as the work of Horikawa Kunihiro, owned by Kongobu-ji on Mt Koya and shown at times in its Reihokan museum.