Saigandenji Temple

Saigandenji is among Kyushu's oldest temples, with roughly 1,300 years of history stretching back to a founding by an Indian monk named Saiei in 726. For centuries it served as a center of volcano worship on Mt. Aso, attracting pilgrims and mountain ascetics. The Meiji government's forced separation of Buddhism and Shinto in 1868 shut the temple down and dispersed its monks. It was relocated to the base of the mountain in 1871, then rebuilt on the summit in 1890 after the anti-Buddhist pressure eased. The current structure dates from August 2022, replacing an 1890 building badly damaged in the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes.