法樂寺(正式名:真言宗泉涌寺派大本山 紫金山小松院 法樂寺)

Horakuji was founded in Jisho 2 (1178) by Taira no Shigemori, the eldest son of Taira no Kiyomori, head of the Taira. He is said to have founded it to hold rites for those who died in the Hogen and Heiji disturbances, friend and foe alike in the spirit of onshin byodo, and to house the Nyoirin Kannon that Minamoto no Tametomo had carried as his own devotional image. The temple burned in Genki 2 (1571) in Oda Nobunaga's campaign, and was restored in the middle of the Edo period with buildings given by the Oda house of the Yamato Matsuyama domain; those are the present main hall and gate. It is also known as the temple where Jiun Sonja (1718-1804), praised as Japan's little Shakyamuni for his study of Sanskrit letters and his Juzen hogo on the way a person should live, took the tonsure at the age of thirteen. In the grounds is the Kosaka Kiseki Memorial Hall, holding the work of the calligrapher Kosaka Kiseki, who won the Imperial Prize of the Japan Art Academy.

Translated from the Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City tourist listings (観光施設一覧, CC BY 4.0).