1 Monme Kōya-san

Kōya-san is the mountain temple complex in Wakayama Prefecture that has served as the headquarters of Shingon Buddhism since Kūkai founded it in the early ninth century. By the Edo period, the complex had accumulated enough institutional wealth and commercial influence to function almost like a minor financial authority — issuing its own credit notes, called *hansatsu*, for use among merchants and pilgrims operating in and around the temple precincts. This 1 Monme note was issued just four years before the Meiji Restoration dismantled the feudal issuing system entirely, making late-date temple *hansatsu* among the shorter-lived paper instruments of the period.

The Daitokuin was one of several sub-temples within Kōya-san's administrative structure. Its credit office role places this note at the intersection of religious authority and local monetary function — an arrangement the new Meiji government moved quickly to abolish after 1868.