Although the temple's main image is that of the thousand-armed form of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Senju Kannon), it is more well-known for its guardian deity Toyokawa Dakini Shinten, a syncretic goddess who assumed characteristics of Inari, the Shinto kami of fertility, rice, agriculture, industry and worldly success.

Despite the presence of a torii gate at the entrance (a relic of the amalgamation of Buddhism and native beliefs before the early modern period), the institution is a Buddhist temple and has no overt association with the Shinto religion.

[1][2][3] In contrast to Nepalese and Tibetan Buddhism, where 'ḍākinī' eventually came to denote female personifications of enlightenment (e.g. Vajrayoginī) or to human women with a certain amount of spiritual development, ḍākinīs were regarded as members of the retinue of the god Yama (the judge of the dead) upon their introduction to Japan via the esoteric Shingon and Tendai schools before they were eventually coalesced into a single goddess called 'Dakiniten', who gradually developed an independent cult of her own from the end of the Heian period onwards.

[8] Legend claims that as Giin was about to leave China in 1267, he experienced a vision of a goddess riding on a white fox, bearing a jewel on one hand and a shoulder pole laden with sheaves of rice on the other.

[9] Tradition claims that Dakiniten taught Kangan Giin the mantra On shira batta niri un sowaka (唵尸羅婆陀尼黎吽娑婆訶, reconstructed as Oṃ śila bheda nirṛti huṃ svāhā[11]), which is traditionally explained as meaning: "When this spell is chanted, the faith in me reaches everywhere, and by the true power of the Buddhist precepts (śila), evil and misfortune will be abolished and luck and wisdom attained; suffering removed and comfort achieved, and pain transformed into delight.

People then came to revere the old man, dubbed 'Heihachirō' (平八郎), as a servant or avatar of Dakiniten, a fox spirit (kitsune) who assumed human form.