[1] It is one of a group of three built near the site in Matsubagayatsu, or the Valley of Pine Needles (松葉ヶ谷),[2] where Nichiren, founder of the Buddhist sect that bears his name, is supposed to have had his hut.

Founder Nichiren was not born there: he came from Awa Province, in today's Chiba Prefecture, and had come to Kamakura because at the time the city was the cultural and political center of the country.

[3] He built himself a hut in the Matsubagayatsu district where three temples (Ankokuron-ji, Myōhō–ji, and Chōshō-ji), have been fighting for centuries for the honor of being his sole heir.

[5] It appears that Ankokuron-ji did not participate in the trial because the government's official position was that Nichiren had his first hut there, when he first arrived in Kamakura, but that he made another near Myōhō–ji after he came back from his exile in Izu in 1263.

[4] Every year in August a special ceremony called Yakuyoke Shōga (厄除け生姜) is held at the temple to commemorate the so-called "Matsubagayatsu Persecution", an episode in which Nichiren had to hide from his persecutors in the forest near Nagoe, towards Zushi, and was fed with ginger by a white monkey.

[6] The building to the left of the main hall is called Daigakuden, and hosts statues of Shaka Nyorai, Katō Kiyomasa and Inari Myōjin, the kami of harvests.

[6][10] The Niō gate behind them leads to the 50-step mossy stairway which today is the temple's main claim to fame, and which has gained it the above-mentioned nickname "Kokedera".