Eiyoji is a Jodo-sect temple on Teramachi-dori in Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto, bearing the mountain name Shomyozan. Its principal image, an Amida Nyorai, is said to have been carved by Ennin (Jikaku Daishi) to quell a smallpox epidemic that ravaged the capital in the early Heian period, and has long been venerated as the "Smallpox-Guardian Buddha." Taira no Shigemori — eldest son of Kiyomori and known as t…

The date of the temple's original founding is unclear, but tradition holds that in 1481 the monk Yuso of Komatsuji in Kamakura restored it under the patronage of the Muromachi shogun Ashikaga Yoshihisa. It fell into ruin during the warfare of the Genki era (1570–1573) but was rebuilt in 1579 by the …