Yakushi-ji

Quick facts

Address

457 Nishinokyocho, Nara

About this place

Yakushi-ji is in Nara. It was founded in 680, in the reign of Emperor Tenmu, in prayer for the recovery of the empress from illness. Its principal image had its eyes opened in 697, in the reign of Empress Jito, and the temple was later moved to its present site in the Nara period. It is inscribed as World Heritage.

Origin and history

Yakushi-ji was founded in 680, in the reign of Emperor Tenmu, in prayer for the recovery of the empress from illness.

Its principal image had its eyes opened in 697, in the reign of Empress Jito, and the temple was later moved to its present site in the Nara period.

It is inscribed as World Heritage.

What it is locally associated with

• OriginHealth & Healing

  In prayer for the empress’s recovery

  Founded in 680, in the reign of Emperor Tenmu, in prayer for the recovery of the empress from illness.

  documented history

• What people do here

  Consecrated in 697, then moved

  The principal image had its eyes opened in 697 under Empress Jito, and the temple was later moved to its present site in the Nara period.

  documented history

• Power spot

  World Heritage

  The temple is inscribed as World Heritage.

  documented history

This temple was built for one sick person. Founded in 680 in prayer for the recovery of the empress from illness — that is the beginning the temple transmits, and whose illness was prayed over is the reason it exists.

There is a temple of the same shape elsewhere on this list. Mizuma-dera in Osaka was built by imperial order after Emperor Shomu fell ill at forty-two and did not recover, following a dream oracle. Twice over, an illness in the imperial house caused a temple to be built.

The principal image had its eyes opened in 697, in the reign of Empress Jito. The emperor who made the prayer had died before that; the temple was finished in the following reign. Later it was moved to its present site in the Nara period.

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. 薬師寺のご案内 — Yakushi-ji (accessed 2026-08-15)