Cultural Assets－Temples and Shrines

Matsuo-dera Temple is said to trace its roots back to a carving of the bodhisattva Nyoirin Kannon by En no Gyoja on a sacred camphor tree during his ascetic training and enshrined in the Hakuho era (645 to 710). Following the coming of Taicho, a monk from Echizen (present-day Fukui Prefecture), the temple flourished from the Nanbokucho Period to the Muromachi Period (14th century). The temple buildings were demolished by warlord Oda Nobunaga during the Sengoku Period (late 16th century) but later rebuilt by Toyotomi Hideyori, a son of warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi, in the early 17th century. The current main hall, which was constructed by dismantling and rebuilding Shitenno-ji Temple’s Amida-do Hall, holds the temple’s principal object of worship, a statue of Nyoirin Kannon in a seated posture. This statue is rarely revealed to the public. Also within the temple’s precincts can be found a gigantic camphor tree about 40 meters in height and about 700 years old, while the parking lot is home to a Japanese bayberry tree that is about 300 years old. Both have been designated Natural Monuments by Osaka Prefecture.