Kohfuku-ji Temple （Nara City, Nara Prefecture）

　Kohfuku-ji Temple is the Fujiwara(nobility name) clan's "FAMILY TEMPLE."

　The Fujiwara clan which has been in power since the Nara period, they built "MY TEMPLE" in hopes of the prosperity of the clan. This is the beginning of Kohfuku-ji Temple.

　The adjacent Kasugataisha Shrine is the Fujiwara clan's "FAMILY SHRINE."

　Fujiwara clan has maintained and managed these large-scale religious facilities for both Buddhism and Shinto.

　The predecessor of Kohfuku-ji Temple was Yamashina-dera Temple, which was built in the Yamashina area of Kyoto by Kagamino Okimi, in the 8th year of Tenchi era(669) during the Aska period, her was Fujiwarano Kamatari's wife. When her prayed for the recovery of her husband.

　It was moved to its current location in conjunction with the transfer of the capital to Heijokyo(Now Nara city).

　During the Nara and Heian periods with the rise of the Fujiwara clan, the number of temples also increased and it reigned as the largest temple in the Kyoto and Nara regions at that time. Adjacent Kasugataisha Shrine was also centrally managed.

　After the Kamakura period, in response to the decline of the court aristocrats represented by their patron the Fujiwara clan, they established a vast manor in Yamato Province(Now Nara prefecture) and ruled as the de fact monarch of Yamato Province.

　The rise of the court aristocracy from the Legislative act state, then the rise of the samurai and the fall of the court aristocracy. Kohfuku-ji Temple has continued to maintain its status as a temple through the changing times, but now it has reached a turning point.

　In 1868, the Meiji government suppressed temples across the country under the "Ordinance on the Separation of Buddhism and Shinto."

　Although Kofhuku-ji Temple was the family temple of the Fujiwara clan, but also no exception and rapidly declined.

　Adjacent Kasugataisha Shrine has completely left the management of Kohfuku-ji Temple. Although it is still a large temple today, but it has felt a little lonely compared to the large temple it once was.

　It has many national treasures and important cultural properties such as the Nara period work "Asura Statue", as a "Remains of the Glory" of the great temple that once ruled Yamato Province.