Katsuo-ji

Quick facts

Address

2914-1 Aomatani, Minoh, Osaka

About this place

Katsuo-ji is in Minoh, Osaka, and is the twenty-third station of the Saigoku pilgrimage. Twin brothers, Zenchu and Zenzan, born in Settsu province in 708, climbed the mountain and built a thatched hermitage for their practice in 727; that is the beginning of the thirteen hundred years of Katsuo-ji. The temple is worshipped as one that wins in every situation where fortune in winning matters, and prayers are made here for examinations, warding off misfortune, illness and sport. But the temple explains "winning" as facing yourself and overcoming your own weak heart. Its winning daruma is a self-pledge: you write your wish and ink one eye, and that is the signature.

Origin and history

In 708, twin brothers named Zenchu and Zenzan were born in Settsu province. They climbed the mountain and built a thatched hermitage for their practice. That was in 727, and it is the beginning of the thirteen hundred years of Katsuo-ji.

The temple is the twenty-third station of the Saigoku pilgrimage, and is worshipped as one that wins in every situation where fortune in winning matters — examinations, warding off misfortune, illness, sport, and the other turns of a life.

What it is locally associated with

• Power spotExams & StudyProtection & SafetyHealth & Healing

  Winning in every situation

  Worshipped as a temple that wins in every situation where fortune in winning matters: examinations, warding off misfortune, illness and sport.

  documented history

• What people do here

  The daruma is a self-pledge

  Writing your wish and inking one eye is, the temple explains, signing a pledge to face yourself and overcome your own weak heart.

  documented history

• Origin

  A hermitage built by twins

  Twin brothers Zenchu and Zenzan, born in Settsu in 708, climbed the mountain and built a hermitage for practice in 727.

  documented history

This temple defines its own sign. It is called a temple of winning, and what it means by winning is facing yourself and overcoming your own weak heart. It says so first, and only then lists the occasions: examinations, warding off misfortune, illness, sport.

And the asking has a procedure. You write your wish on a winning daruma and ink in one eye. The temple describes this as signing a self-pledge. You put down your aim and your target for three hundred and sixty-five days on, offer incense with your thanks, and ink the right eye as the signature of that promise. Then you look back on each day, and at the end you report at the main hall — a wish with a start, a deadline and a debrief.

It began with a hut on a mountain. The twin brothers born in 708 climbed up and built a thatched hermitage for their practice, in 727, and that is the start of the thirteen hundred years.

Related guides

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• 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. 勝ちダルマ・御守 — Katsuo-ji (accessed 2026-08-14)
2. 歴史 — 開山 — Katsuo-ji (accessed 2026-08-14)