Kongo Sanmaiin Temple

Kongo Sanmaiin Temple

Kongo Sanmaiin Temple (金剛三昧院) in Koyasan, Koya Town, Ito District, Wakayama Prefecture, has a Tahoto pagoda of 1223 designated a National Treasure on November 22, 1952, and an early Kamakura sutra repository, a shrine main hall of 1552 and an early Edo guest hall and kitchen designated as an Important Cultural Property (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The pagoda was also designated under the former law in 1899 and the repository in 1922.

According to the Agency, Kongo Sanmaiin began as the Zenjoin, founded in 1211 by Hojo Masako to pray for the soul of Minamoto no Yoritomo, and took its present name in 1219.

The Four Properties

The Tahoto is a three-bay pagoda closely resembling that of Ishiyamadera, with Buddhist paintings on its inner pillars and walls; with Ishiyamadera's it ranks as the oldest surviving tahoto (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The sutra repository, of the same age, is a log-built store under a hipped cypress-bark roof.

The Shisho Myojin Shrine is the temple's tutelary shrine, a one-bay kasuga-style hall of the late Muromachi period. The guest hall and kitchen share one building 34.3 metres long, which the Agency calls the oldest and finest of its kind on Koyasan. Each property is described on its own page.

Visiting

No official visiting information was found.