Important Cultural Property of Wakayama

An iron kettle at Kumano Hongu Taisha cast with the date 1198, used in the yudate rite. It is among Japan's oldest dated kettles, from the early Kamakura era.

A bronze five-pronged vajra bell at Shochi-in on Koyasan, made in Tang China and designated in 1928. An esoteric Buddhist implement, paired with a vajra in ritual.

A Muromachi bronze bell at Kongobuji on Mount Koya, cast on the Buddha's birthday in 1504 and re-inscribed in 1572. An Important Cultural Property at the Reihokan.

A Kamakura bronze bell owned by Kongobuji on Mount Koya, with a cast inscription dating it to 1280. A securely dated example shown by rotation at the Reihokan.

A 1210 bronze bell at Kongo Sanmaiin, Mount Koya, ringed with deity names and nine Sanskrit mantras. A rare Important Cultural Property, unrung in its gate-tower.

A burial assemblage placing a lay devotee's bones near Kūkai's mausoleum at Okunoin in 1287, with a gilt-bronze pagoda and a cast bronze triad found in the earth.

Held by Hōju-in on Mount Kōya, this upper volume of the Nihon Hokke Genki is a 1153 copy of a Heian collection of Buddhist miracle tales about the Lotus Sutra.

Four Nō costumes from a shrine below Mount Kōya: two embroidered hunting robes, a chōken and a happi, recorded in a 1610 diary, exceptionally rare Momoyama work.

A Kamakura manuscript with part of volume three of the Tang poet Bai Juyi's collected works, held at Sanbō-in on Mount Kōya, a witness to its transmission in Japan.

A Kamakura worship dais from the Fudō-dō on Mount Kōya, the low seat where a priest knelt to officiate, part of one original set with the flower-form altar.

A Kamakura ritual altar made for the Fudō-dō, oldest hall on Mount Kōya. Built in two parts on a square base, it once held the implements of esoteric Shingon rites.

Dated to 1312, the Hanagata Daidan is a Kamakura-period esoteric altar at Kongōbu-ji on Mount Kōya, its lotus-petal form a stage for the implements of a rite.

Legend says Kūkai threw this vajra from China and found it caught in a Kōyasan pine. Trace the Heian implement at the heart of the mountain's founding legend.

Two Kamakura tachi with chain straps, by tradition offered during the Mongol invasions. Held by the shrine of Kōyasan's guardians, now at the Tokyo National Museum.

A Heian manuscript of Kūkai's Bunkyō Hifuron, his anthology of Chinese poetic theory, sits at Mount Kōya's Sanbō-in and preserves Tang texts now lost in China.

A Nara-period scroll copied in 743 under Empress Kōmyō's patronage, preserving volume nine of an early Perfection of Wisdom sutra. Held at Ryūkō-in on Mt. Kōya.

Discover the Wooden Seated Amida Nyorai, a National Important Cultural Property preserved at Mount Koya (Koyasan) in Wakayama Prefecture. Originally enshrined as the principal image of the Daikaidō (Great Assembly Hall) — a memorial hall founded in 1175 by Princess Shōshi (Itsutsuji Saiin) for her father, Retired Emperor Toba — this serene seated Buddha is now safeguarded at the Koyasan Reihōkan Treasure Museum and shown periodically in special exhibitions. Explore the meeting point of imperial Pure Land devotion and esoteric Shingon spirituality at one of Japan's most sacred mountains.

An early Heian Diamond World Dainichi Nyorai thought to be the original icon of Kōyasan's West Pagoda, and among the oldest Buddhist sculptures on the mountain.

A Diamond World Dainichi bearing an ink inscription dated 1062, this single-block hinoki figure shows the calm, broad style of provincial Heian workshops in Kii.

A Womb World Dainichi in meditation pose, this early Kamakura figure carries the taut, youthful manner of the Kei school, now kept by the Pure Land temple Jōkyō-ji.