Beside the main hall is a profusion of large green leaves. These resemble the leaves of a kind of edible yam. When Kūkai visited the temple, he asked an old woman there if he could have a few to eat, but seeing him only as a poor mendicant priest of no status, she said, “Oh, these are inedible yams”. Whereupon Kūkai struck the ground with his staff, and the once-edible yams became inedible. Obviously, this particular plant was never edible, but the story warns us not to judge people or things by their appearance alone.

In 794 at the age of 19, Kūkai made his home in a cave on the Muroto coast and completed the ascetic practice of reading the Kokūzō Gumonji sutra a million times while seated on a rock overlooking the Pacific. One of the requirements of this training is that it must be done facing Venus, which appears as a bright star in the west. When Kūkai achieved enlightenment here, he had a vision of the star flyng into his mouth. To mark this transition in his life, he adopted the name by which he was known until his death — Kūkai, meaning “sky and sea”. In 815, aged 33, Kūkai returned here, carved the statue of Kokūzō and established the temple.