Like many temples in eastern Hyogo, Bodai-ji traces its legendary origins to Hodo, an Indian mystic whose story is recorded in the Kamakura-period Genko Shakusho. According to that text, Hodo arrived in Japan by flying on a purple cloud from India through Tang China and the Korean kingdom of Baekje. He found a mountain in Kamo County shaped like an eight-petaled lotus flower, named it Mount Hokke after the sacred mountain of the Lotus Sutra, and established himself as a holy figure. His nickname -- the Empty Bowl Sage -- came from his supposed ability to send bowls soaring through the air to collect rice offerings from villagers. Whether Hodo was a real person remains unresolved. Temples claiming his patronage cluster throughout eastern Hyogo, suggesting that some kernel of historical truth -- perhaps an actual Indian traveler -- lies beneath the supernatural embroidery.

Emperor Kazan reigned from 984 to 986 before abdicating at the age of seventeen, supposedly tricked into entering Buddhist orders by the politically ambitious Fujiwara no Kaneie. As a cloistered emperor, Kazan turned to religion. He is credited with reviving the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage, walking the route himself and restoring its temples. It was during this pilgrimage, around 992, that he spotted the mysterious light from Banshu Kiyomizu-dera and followed it to what was then called Shiunzan Kannon-ji. The temple was renamed Tokozan -- "Eastern Light Mountain" -- in reference to the radiance that had guided him there. Kazan made it his retreat for approximately fourteen years before eventually returning to Kyoto in his later years. The temple buildings were later completed with donations from Minamoto no Yorimitsu, the renowned Heian-period warrior better known in Japanese folklore as Raiko, the demon slayer.

The village below the temple is called Niiji, meaning "nunnery," and its name carries a story of devotion and exclusion. According to legend, eleven ladies-in-waiting to the retired emperor traveled to Mount Tokozan carrying the memorial tablet of Fujiwara no Yoshiko, the emperor's beloved consort. When they arrived, they were refused entry. The mountain maintained the nyonin kinsei -- the prohibition against women entering sacred Buddhist precincts -- and the ladies could not climb to their emperor's retreat. Rather than return to the capital, all eleven took the tonsure and settled at the mountain's base. The village that grew around them still contains twelve large and small tombs attributed to the nuns, with the central monument believed to be the memorial stupa of Fujiwara no Yoshiko herself. Nearby, on Kotohikizaka Hill, a stone monument marks the spot where the koto was played in admiration of the retired emperor above.

In the eleventh century, the Tada Genji clan -- a powerful branch of the Seiwa Genji based at the nearby Tada estate -- became devoted patrons of the temple, funding the construction of halls and pagodas. But the mountain took back what was built. Lightning destroyed the clan's buildings, and the temple endured centuries of obscurity. Modern archaeological excavations on Mount Tokozan have uncovered the foundation stones of those lost structures, confirming that the temple compound was once considerably larger than what stands today. The current temple, the head of the Kazan-in branch of Shingon Buddhism, houses a statue of Yakushi Nyorai -- the Medicine Buddha -- as its honzon, or primary sacred image. Seven kilometers northeast of Shin-Sanda Station on the JR Fukuchiyama Line, Bodai-ji rewards the effort of reaching it with silence, elevation, and a view that an emperor once found worth fourteen years of his life.