Sanadaan

After Sekigahara in 1600, Sanada Masayuki and his son Nobushige — the man popular history calls Yukimura — were exiled to Kudoyama at the foot of Mt. Koya and lived there for fourteen years under guard. In 1614 Nobushige slipped out and went to Osaka Castle, where he fought the campaign that made him the most celebrated loser in Japanese history.

Zenmyoshoin, universally called Sanadaan, stands on the site of their residence. It is a small temple with a treasure museum, a Yosa Buson verse stone in the grounds, and the accumulated devotion of everyone who has ever preferred the losing side. Kudoyama is also the gateway to Koyasan — Jison-in, the temple where Kukai's mother lived because women could not go up the mountain, is a twenty-minute walk away and is a World Heritage site.