In a vignette written in the Taiheiki (Chronicle of Great Peace), the demon Sokushitsuki (literally "fast-footed demon") steals a relic of Buddha, and the guardian Idaten chases him down and retrieves it. This story is performed in the Nō theater play Shari (Reliquary). The artist Hashimoto Gahō, who would have been familiar with the Nō play, turned the drama into this action-packed picture.

This painting belonged to Ernest Fenollosa, who introduced European and American art to a circle of Meiji period (1868–1912) Japanese artists that included Gahō. Fenollosa was one of the first Americans to study Japanese art in depth; his collection is now part of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.