On the 28th day of the ninth month of 1189, having destroyed the Oshu Fujiwara, Minamoto no Yoritomo halted at this cave on his return to Kamakura. The Azuma Kagami records that local people told him this was the Taya Cave, the rock shelter where the rebel chiefs Akuro-o and Akagashira had raised their stronghold when Sakanoue no Tamuramaro and other generals campaigned against the Emishi by imperial command, and that Tamuramaro afterwards built a nine-bay hall modeled on Kurama-dera, enshrined Bishamonten within it, and named it Saikoji. For Yoritomo, newly master of Oshu, the stop placed him before a memory of subjugation nearly four centuries old.