sekiba tera

Ishiba-ji temple in Higashiomi, Shiga Prefecture, traces its founding to 594 CE (Suiko 2). According to legend, Prince Shotoku visited this sacred site when his horse stopped at the mountain foot and would not move. After climbing the mountain alone, he returned to find the horse had turned to stone and sunk into a pond. Taking this as an auspicious omen, he named the mountain Gyotozan and founded the temple, calling it Ishiba-ji (Stone Horse Temple). During the medieval period it flourished under the patronage of the Rokkaku clan. In 1568, during the Battle of Kannonji Castle, the temple complex was destroyed by fire. After being rebuilt in the early Edo period, it adopted the Rinzai Myoshin-ji sect in 1644 when monk Ungo Kiyo from Zuigan-ji was invited as the temple restorer. A pond containing the legendary stone horse still remains on the grounds.