Emperor Shōmu was responsible for building Todai-ji, and he built provincial temples all over the country. All these temples were built in a similar way. There was a southern gate, middle gate, and main hall, all aligned in a straight line with a five-storied pagoda located next to the middle gate. There would also be an accompanying nunnery nearby. However, unlike the other provincial temples, there is a burial mound located on these temple grounds. Why is it that, rather than removing the burial grounds, they chose to build around it? Most likely, someone from the temple had a connection with or was a descendant of the Kashiwade Clan.

Wakasa-hime is enshrined in this temple built directly on top of the burial ground. Some might wonder why Wakasa-hime is enshrined here rather than Wakasa-hiko. One potential reason is that Wakasa-hime, associated with Onyu Myojin, held particular importance to Kashiwade, the ruler of this land at that time. In any case, the same fusion of these two dissimilar things is something that can also be seen here at this temple.

However, the roof tiles from the capital weren’t found here, they were found at Taiko-ji Temple. Maybe Taiko-ji was once used as a provincial temple. Since Todai-ji was the head provincial temple, this temple should have the same Vairocana statue as Todai-ji, but Gautama Buddha is enshrined here instead.

So where did the Vairocana Buddha go? Actually, some people believe that the Bhaisajyaguru statue in the nunnery adjacent to this temple was actually enshrined here before. Because of this, some believe this temple was originally the nunnery before becoming the main temple hall.

Putting all these pieces together, we started to formulate a story. The original provincial temple enshrined Wakasa-hiko, and the nunnery enshrined the female Wakasa-hime. However, when the main temple burned down, the nunnery replaced it. So where was the original main temple? We believe it was Taiko-ji.