The ancient city of Kyōto functioned as Japan's (later de jure) capital between 794 and 1869. In the early medieval times it was known as Heian-kyō, and the Emperor's royal residence was located here. The city's official entrance was Rajōmon, more commonly known as Rashōmon, which means "city-wall gate."

Originally a magnificent structure, the Rajōmon gate was destroyed by a storm in either 816 or 980 AD, and was never fully restored. It became so dilapidated that, for a while, the upper part of the gate was used to dispose of unclaimed corpses. According to a contemporaneous nobleman's diary called the Shōyūki, by the early 11th century some cornerstones were all that had remained of the famed gate.

There has been a number of legends concerning Rajōmon. In one, it was haunted by an oni (demon-ogre), who was defeated by samurai Watanabe no Tsuna. The 12th-century anthology Konjaku Monogatari features the story of a thief, set during the times when the gate was starting to crumble. It was adapted into a short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa in 1915, which was then further popularized by Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film Rashomon, whose plot derives from another of Akutagawa's works titled In a Grove.

None of the gate's ruins have been unearthed to this day, but its original site is commemorated by a stone monument, located in a small park beside Yatori Jizo-son Temple. A smaller recreation of Rajōmon can also be found outside Kyōto Station.