Gotoku-ji Buddhist Temple in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, is thought to be the birthplace of a beckoning cat, called maneki-neko in Japan.

Maneki-neko, frequently seen near the main entrance of a restaurant and store, is believed to invite good luck and good business in Japan.  This cute figure is also seen in China and Taiwan recently though, the birthplace of it is thought to be Gotoku-ji Buddhist Temple in Tokyo.  In the first half of the 17th century, Ii Naotaka who was the then feudal lord of the Hikone domain in present Shiga Prefecture just happened to be passing by a temple on the way back from hawking, where a cute cat of the temple beckoned him to enter the temple ground.  Right after he followed the cat, he was caught in a thunderstorm and the spot he met the cat was struck by lightning.  Thanks to the cat, he was saved by the skin of his teeth.

He named the temple Gotoku-ji, thereafter, and designated as his family temple in Edo, present Tokyo, in token of his gratitude to the cat.  Since then, many visitors have offered a statue of a beckoning cat to the temple to share his good luck, as shown in the first photo.

In this connection, Ii Naosuke, the 14th feudal lord of the Hikone domain, managed the national administration as a chief minister of the Tokugawa Shogunate in the middle of the 19th century.  But he was assassinated by several samurais from other feudal domains because his way of administration was provocative as it was too much self-righteous.  He is sleeping in the graveyard of the temple with other members of the Ii family.

http://tour-guide-japan.jp/