sakemi tera

Sagamiji Temple in Kasai, Hyogo, is a Koyasan Shingon temple founded in 745 by the monk Gyoki at the imperial request of Emperor Shomu, after receiving a divine oracle from the local deity Sakamimyojin. The temple was twice destroyed by fire—during the Heiji Disturbance of 1159 and in the Tensho era—but was revived in the Edo period under the patronage of the Ikeda and Honda clans. The third Tokugawa shogun Iemitsu designated it a vermilion-seal temple, granting annual stipends. Its multi-storied pagoda (taho-to) is a National Important Cultural Property, celebrated as one of the most beautiful of its kind in Japan.