Kasagidera Temple

In the Nara period, Emperor Tenmu was hunting on Mount Kasagi when a deer led him into a place from which he could neither advance nor retreat; he prayed to the Buddha and escaped. He then had a Miroku Bosatsu carved into the face of a great rock and made it the principal image, and that is where Kasagidera began. The temple developed into a centre of mountain asceticism in the late Heian period but was burned during the Genko War; the present main hall and Shogatsudo date from the Muromachi period.