Nishiyama Koryuji

Koryuji stands on a wooded hillside at Tanbara in Saijo. It belongs to the Daigo branch of the Shingon school, and its main image is the thousand-armed Kannon. It is the tenth of the twenty temples that make up the second Shikoku pilgrimage, the one kept alongside the eighty-eight.

The temple dates its founding to 642, in the reign of the empress Kogyoku, by a monk called Kuhatsu Shonin.

Three later figures are recorded as having come to the mountain: Gyoki, who travelled the country building temples and public works in the eighth century; Hoon Daishi; and Kobo Daishi. The temple was supported by the imperial house, by warriors and by the lords of the domain, as well as by people living around it.

The way up to the temple is a long approach under maples, and the hillside is a place of scenic beauty designated by the prefecture.

Other things lie along it: a stream called the Miyurugi, a waterfall named after Fudo Myoo, a fierce guardian of the Buddhist teaching, a viewpoint, a three-storey pagoda, and a circuit of eighty-eight small stations that repeats the whole Shikoku pilgrimage within the grounds.

The main hall is an Important Cultural Property, along with a bronze bell, a stone reliquary pagoda and two ridge tags recording construction.

The prefecture lists a standing bronze figure of a buddha and the temple's documents, as well as the hillside noted above. The town lists the three-storey pagoda, another stone pagoda, a Chinese fir and a camellia called the Kumagai.