Jinraku-ji, Buddhist temple in Tawaramoto, Japan

Jinraku-ji is a Shingon Risshu temple in Tawaramoto, Nara Prefecture, with the mountain name Kōnichi-zan and the temple name Jōdo-in. Its white Chinese-style storehouse gate leads to a main hall that enshrines a Heian-period Thousand-Armed Kannon, flanked by statues of Prince Shōtoku and Hata no Kawakatsu. The grounds also contain an Ajiji pond shaped like the Sanskrit syllable 'a' and a small Shinto shrine.

According to temple tradition, the site began in 647 when a Kannon statue given by a Baekje king to Prince Shotoku was passed to Hata no Kawakatsu and installed here. In 807 Kukai, back from Tang China, is said to have made the Ajiji pond and written the Sangoshiiki at the temple. The buildings burned in 1570 during Matsunaga Hisahide's advance into Toichi District and were rebuilt in 1759 by the monk Ekai.

The temple name Jinraku-ji is explained on its notice board as meaning "musicians of Hata", referring to the Hata clan of entertainers who lived in this area. The temple grounds contain both a Shinto shrine and a Buddhist temple, with Kasuga Shrine and Kasanui Shrine standing side by side in the southeast; Kasanui Shrine is a candidate site for Kasanui-mura. The temple also preserves a legend that Kukai silenced the frogs of the pond.

Jinraku-ji is about 200 metres north-west of Kasanui Station on the Kintetsu Kashihara Line, so the temple can be reached on foot from the platform. The precinct is small and level, with the white earthen storehouse gate, the main hall and the two shrines at the south-east close together. The pond is best visited in July and August, when the lotus flowers open.

The pond is called Ajichi, shaped like the Sanskrit Siddham letter 'a'. Kukai is said to have dug it in 807 after returning from Tang China, and to have written the Sangoshiiki here; legend holds he scolded its noisy frogs into silence.