Kinpusen-ji (Mount Yoshino)

Kinpusen-ji, on Mount Yoshino in Nara Prefecture, is Shugendo's head sanctuary and, by tradition, was founded by En no Gyoja himself. Its Zao Hall, the second largest wooden structure in Japan after Todai-ji's Great Buddha Hall, enshrines Zao Gongen, the fierce guardian deity said to have been revealed to En no Gyoja on the mountain. The temple heads Kinpusen Shugendo, one of Shugendo's three organised lineages alongside the Shingon affiliated Tozan-ha and the Tendai affiliated Honzan-ha, and is, with Ominesan-ji on Mount Omine, one of the tradition's two most important sites. Both were inscribed together in 2004 as part of the UNESCO Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/