Kotohira-gū (金刀比羅宮?) (also known as Konpira-dai-gongen (金比羅大権現?), Konpira-san (こんぴらさん?), or Konpira Shrine in English) is a Shintō shrine in the town of Kotohira in Nakatado District of Kagawa Prefecture, Japan.
Located at 521m halfway to the top of Mount Zōzu, the shrine stands at the end of a long path, with 785 steps to the main shrine and a total of 1,368 steps to the inner shrine. Since the Muromachi Period pilgrimages to the shrine became popular, and even today usually hundreds of visitors in a day climb the steps of Mount Zōzu. On the way to the shrine is a sake museum, stores, and stones with the names of donors carved in kanji. Due to the Honji suijaku theory which claimed the local kami were incarnations of Buddhist gods, Kotohira Shrine was in times before the Meiji era equally a Buddhist and a Shintoist sanctuary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotohira-g%C5%AB
