Unpen-ji, Buddhist temple at Mount Unpen in Ikeda, Japan

Unpen-ji is a Buddhist temple set at 927 meters on Mount Unpen with a main hall housing a thousand-armed Kannon statue. The grounds contain several treasure halls that preserve important cultural objects from the late Heian period.

According to temple tradition, Kūkai founded Unpen-ji in 789 while seeking timber for Zentsū-ji. In 1098 a fire destroyed the whole mountain, and the hunter Yonari rebuilt the halls after seeing Kannon appear in a tree. The main Kannon and Bishamonten statues date from the late Heian period, and in 1577 Chōsokabe Motochika visited to pray.

Unpen-ji is the 66th temple of the Shikoku Pilgrimage and the first of the 88 in Sanuki Province, though it lies in Tokushima. Its goeika hymn reads: 'Coming to the temple by the clouds, I now see the months and days from the foot of the mountain.' The temple is the last 'checkpoint temple' (sekisho-ji) on the route.

From the Kagawa side, the Unpenji Ropeway runs from the base station to the summit station, and the temple grounds are about a 10-minute walk from there. On the Tokushima side, a parking lot near the temple holds 20 cars and charges 500 yen, with another 10 free spaces 1 km down the prefectural road. The walk from the parking lot to the grounds takes about 10 minutes.

The temple's summit area was a ski slope until it closed at the end of March 2020; it has since been reworked into Unpenji Sanchō Park, with a swing, benches and a photo frame set up for visitors. The temple also keeps a collection of stone statues, including five hundred arhats, scattered across the grounds.