The Kan’ei-ji Temple was built in 1625 of the Edo period by third shogun Iemitsu Tokugawa. The first head priest was named Tenkai (天海). In hopes for tranquility of the Tokugawa shogunate and safety of all the peoples, Kan’ei-ji Temple was built on the plateau at Ueno, chosen because of its northeastern position from the castle at Edo (Tokyo).

The temple in the northeast of Kyoto’s old imperial palace is called Hieizan Enryaku-ji (比叡山延暦寺), and based from this name, Kan’ei-ji took another name of Tōeizan (東叡山). The main subject of worship is called Yakushirurikō Nyorai Zō (薬師瑠璃光如来像). The sect of Buddhism is Tendai Shū (天台宗).

Kan’ei-ji Temple, like Zōjō-ji Temple in Shiba, Tokyo, was used as a funeral temple for the Tokugawa shogunate family. At present, six of the fifteen shoguns are buried there. (Ietsuna, Tsunayoshi, Yoshimune, Ieharu, Ienari, and Iesada)

At the of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868 during the Boshin War, the Shōgitai (Tokugawa loyalists) barricaded themselves inside the temple, turning the surrounding area into a war field. The main building of Kan’ei-ji was burned down in a fire set by government forces. The Meiji government confiscated the temple grounds and turned them into a park, leaving the temple reconstruction in a state of recess until 1879 when plans for restoring the temple were acknowledged and the temple rebuilt. The statue of Yakushirurikō Nyorai Zō was brought outside the temple during the war, where it remains today.