Amanosan Kongo-ji

Quick facts

Address

996 Amanocho, Kawachinagano, Osaka

About this place

Amanosan Kongo-ji is in Kawachinagano, Osaka. It is known as Nyonin Koya, the Koya of women, and the temple describes itself as carrying that name into the future and as a principal constituent asset of "the Koya of women that lives on today with women". Its principal image is a Dainichi Nyorai designated a National Treasure. During the period of the Northern and Southern Courts, Emperor Go-Murakami conducted the business of government in this temple’s refectory for about five years.

Origin and history

Amanosan Kongo-ji is known as Nyonin Koya, the Koya of women. The temple carries that name forward as something to be passed on to the future, and describes itself as a principal constituent asset of the Koya of women that lives on today with women.

Its principal image is a Dainichi Nyorai designated a National Treasure.

During the period of the Northern and Southern Courts, Emperor Go-Murakami conducted the business of government in this temple’s refectory for about five years.

What it is locally associated with

• Power spot

  The Koya of women

  It is known as Nyonin Koya, and the temple carries that name as something to be passed on to the future.

  documented history

• What people do here

  Five years of government in the refectory

  During the Northern and Southern Courts, Emperor Go-Murakami conducted the business of government in this temple’s refectory for about five years.

  documented history

• Origin

  A National Treasure Dainichi

  Its principal image is a Dainichi Nyorai designated a National Treasure.

  documented history

This temple’s name is made out of a contrast with a place that would not admit people. The Koya of women — Koyasan barred women; this mountain did not. The temple still carries the name, and writes of it as something to be passed on to the future rather than as something that was.

It also has a stretch of political time. During the Northern and Southern Courts, Emperor Go-Murakami conducted the business of government in this temple’s refectory for about five years. A building where meals are eaten was, for five years, where a state was run.

The principal image is a Dainichi Nyorai designated a National Treasure. About what may be asked for here, the temple’s own guide says nothing, and so this page attaches no category.

Related guides

• How to visit a shrine or temple in JapanThe country-wide basics: purifying at the water basin, the two-bows-two-claps-one-bow form at shrines, and what temples do instead.
• What a "power spot" actually isA modern Japanese coinage, not a traditional religious category. Where the word came from, what it does and does not claim, and why this site uses it anyway.
• Shrine or temple?A shrine is Shinto and a temple is Buddhist, and you can usually tell at the gate. Why the line is cleaner on paper than on the ground, and what a government order in 1868 has to do with it.
• Omamori, ema, omikuji and goshuinThe four things you are most likely to receive, write, draw or be given at a shrine or temple, what each is actually for, and the one of them people most often get wrong.

Sources

1. 天野山金剛寺 — Amanosan Kongo-ji (accessed 2026-08-15)