His wife, Kita no Mandokoro, (who was also known as Nene and later took the name 'Kodaiin Kogetsuni' after becoming a Buddhist nun) vowed to establish a temple to pray to Buddha for the happiness of her late husband, and originally attempted to use Kotoku-ji Temple (used to be in Teramachi, Kyoto), in which her mother Asahi no Tsubone was buried, for this purpose but it was too small so she established a new temple on Kodai-ji Temple's current site in Higashiyama.
秀吉の正室である北政所（ねね、出家後は高台院湖月尼）は秀吉の菩提を弔うための寺院の建立を発願し、当初は北政所の実母・朝日局が眠る康徳寺（京都の寺町にあった）をそれに充てようとしたが、手狭であったため、東山の現在地に新たな寺院を建立することになった。