Tsurugaoka Hachimangū: The Warrior Shrine of Kamakura
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Very High
- Country
- Japan
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Kamakura shogunate, Later Hōjō, Tokugawa
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Sanctuary
On this page10 sections
History
Tsurugaoka Hachimangū is a Hachiman shrine in Kamakura, Japan, founded in 1063 and later developed as the religious and political center of the Kamakura shogunate. Hachiman is a Japanese kami associated especially with warriors and historically identified with Emperor Ōjin. The shrine’s three principal deities are Emperor Ōjin, Hime-gami, and Empress Jingū.
Foundation and Minamoto patronage
Minamoto no Yoriyoshi established the original Tsurugaoka Wakamiya at Yui, in present-day Zaimokuza, after praying for victory during the Former Nine Years’ War. The sanctuary was founded either as a branch of Iwashimizu Hachimangū in Kyoto or, according to another tradition, of Tsuboi Hachimangū, the tutelary shrine of the Kawachi Minamoto clan. Minamoto no Yoshiie repaired it in 1081.
After entering Kamakura in 1180, Minamoto no Yoritomo moved the shrine to Kobayashi-no-go, at the northern foot of the hill now associated with the Upper Shrine. Yoritomo, the founder and first shogun of the Kamakura shogunate, developed government facilities around it, making the sanctuary the focal point of the military government centered in Kamakura. Its Minamoto foundation and association with Yoritomo made Tsurugaoka Hachimangū a major object of warrior devotion.
Reorganization and the shrine-temple complex
A fire damaged the sanctuary in 1191. The institution was then reorganized into the Upper Shrine, or Hongū, and the Lower Shrine, or Wakamiya, while its connection with Iwashimizu Hachimangū was reaffirmed. In 1208, a jingūji, a combined shrine-temple institution where kami worship and Buddhist practice operated together, was established.
The institution was historically connected with the assassination of Minamoto no Sanetomo in 1219. Sanetomo had just taken part in a ceremony celebrating his nomination as Udaijin when his nephew Kugyō, the son of the second shogun Minamoto no Yoriie, attacked him beside the great stairway. Kugyō was executed several hours later. The often-repeated story that he concealed himself behind the great ginkgo is uncertain. Contemporary records do not mention the tree, and that detail appears to have arisen during the Edo period.
After the Kamakura shogunate declined, the shrine’s monastic establishment diminished. It had once contained 25 clerical residences, but the institution temporarily lost much of its earlier strength. In 1526, the buildings were burned during conflict involving Satomi Yoshitoyo and Sanetaka and Hōjō Ujitsuna. Hōjō Ujitsuna rebuilt the sanctuary in 1540.
Tokugawa expansion and Meiji separation
Under the Tokugawa shogunate, Tsurugaoka Hachimangū received extensive protection and grew into a larger religious complex. Buddhist and Shinto-related buildings included a Niō Gate, goma hall, scripture repository, Kagura hall, Aizen hall, hexagonal hall, Kannon hall, Lotus Sutra hall, and Benzaiten hall. During the rule of Tokugawa Iemitsu, a Yakushi hall, bell tower, and tower gate were added. The grounds also contained a five-by-five-bay tahōtō, a type of Buddhist pagoda, and a Tōshōgū.
Until the Meiji policy of shinbutsu bunri in 1868, the institution was called Tsurugaoka Hachimangū-ji and functioned as both a Hachiman shrine and a Tendai Buddhist temple. The separation policy divided Shinto institutions from Buddhism and caused the destruction, removal, sale, or dispersal of many Buddhist buildings and objects. Tsurugaoka Hachimangū lost much of its former religious and architectural extent, and its name was changed from Tsurugaoka Hachimangū-ji to Tsurugaoka Hachimangū. The Buddhist title Hachiman Daibosatsu was abolished, and the traditional life-release ceremony was replaced by the Mid-Autumn Festival. The wooden Niō guardians were among the surviving objects transferred elsewhere, having been sold to Jufuku-ji.
The shrine was classified as a prefectural shrine under the modern shrine-ranking system and became a nationally ranked middle-class shrine in 1882. It held the status of Kokuhei Chūsha from 1871 to 1946 and was later designated a Beppyo Shrine under the Association of Shinto Shrines. In 2024, it notified that association of its withdrawal, and Kanagawa Prefecture certified the withdrawal under the Religious Corporations Act on June 4. Corporate-rule registration procedures were then to proceed.
Earthquake, excavation, and heritage protection
The Great Kantō Earthquake of September 1, 1923, completely destroyed the tower gate, the Lower Worship Hall or Maiden, the three main torii, the Taiko Bridge, and the worship hall of Shirahata Shrine. The Main Shrine, worship hall, Wakamiya, and Shirahata Shrine’s main hall suffered minor damage. The embankments of the Genpei Ponds and Mount Daijinyama also collapsed. The Taiko Bridge was rebuilt in 1927.
Excavation in 1982 uncovered remains thought to belong to a Buddhist temple together with human bones from burials. They may represent Kamakura Shōgenji, a center of Myōken devotion mentioned in a record from 1153. Shōgenji is itself thought to have preceded Matsugenji, which was later abolished during the anti-Buddhist movement. If this interpretation is correct, the temple was moved when the shrine was constructed.
The grounds became a National Historic Site in 1967. Wakamiya Ōji had already received historic-site protection in 1935, and its protected area was enlarged in 2006. The shrine complex was recognized as a component cultural property of Japan Heritage in 2016. The Kamakura Museum of National Treasures opened beside the grounds in 1928. A former modern-art museum beside the Heike Pond ended exhibitions in 2016, was transferred to Tsurugaoka Hachimangū later that year, and reopened as the Kamakura Bunkakan Tsurugaoka Museum in 2019. Its building received prefectural important-cultural-property status in 2016 and national important-cultural-property status in 2020.
Remains
Upper and Lower Shrines
The complex is arranged around the Upper Shrine, or Hongū, at the top of a 61-step stone stairway and the Lower Shrine, or Wakamiya, below it. The Upper Shrine was rebuilt in 1828 on the orders of Tokugawa Ienari, the eleventh Tokugawa shogun, in the flowing gongen-zukuri form. Its main hall, connecting hall, worship hall, and corridors form a unified composition, and the principal shrine buildings are nationally designated Important Cultural Properties.
Behind a gate, the Main Shrine stands above the stairway. Below the steps is the Maiden, an open ritual pavilion used for performances and ceremonies. It was originally an unpainted timber structure rather than the vermilion-painted building seen today, and its front structures were enlarged after the beginning of the twenty-first century. The Wakamiya includes its own main hall, connecting hall, and worship hall. Other important buildings include the main hall of Takeuchi Shrine, the main hall of Maruyama Inari Shrine, and the main hall and worship hall of Shirahata Shrine.
Wakamiya Ōji and the approach
Wakamiya Ōji is Yoritomo’s approach to the shrine, a straight route approximately 1.8 kilometres long extending from the complex toward Yuigahama and the sea. It was built as an imitation of Kyoto’s Suzaku Ōji. The route was originally wider, bordered by pine trees and a canal approximately 3 metres deep, and passes through the First, Second, and Third Great Torii.
Between the Second and Third Torii is the Dankazura, a raised pedestrian way under the shrine’s direct administration. It is about 4 metres wide near the Second Torii and approximately 3 metres wide near the Third, becoming progressively narrower toward the shrine. This changing width has been interpreted as an optical device that makes the approach appear longer and gives the distant Main Shrine a more solemn appearance. Cherry trees line the path. Between the First and Second Torii was Geba Yotsukado, where mounted visitors were required to dismount in respect for Hachiman.
The First Great Torii was erected by Tokugawa Ieyoshi and made of granite from Inujima in Okayama Prefecture. Two stainless-steel lanterns beside it were dedicated in June 1940 by Kawai Sahei, president of the steel merchant Kawai Kōtetsu. Imperial Household Ministry engineers designed them, and Tokumasu Kyūgorō of Shimbashi manufactured them from imported 18-8 stainless steel. The right lantern was soldered with steel from Thomas Firth of Britain, while the left was assembled with 9,200 rivets using steel from United States Steel.
Genpei Ponds and subsidiary shrines
Near the entrance, the Genpei Ponds are divided into the Genji or Minamoto Pond and the Heike or Taira Pond. The Minamoto Pond has three islands and the Taira Pond four, traditionally symbolizing the characters for birth and death. A channel joins the two ponds, which contain carp, soft-shelled turtles, and many water birds; lotus flowers cover much of their surface in summer.
The ponds are traditionally associated with an order given by Yoritomo in April 1182 to the monk Senkō and Ōba Kageyoshi to excavate them. Another tradition attributes the work to Yoritomo’s wife Masako, who had white lotuses planted in the eastern pond and red lotuses in the western pond for the prosperity of the Minamoto family. The red lotuses are said to symbolize the blood shed by the Taira.
The central bridge over the connecting channel is the Taiko Bridge. It was originally a red-painted wooden bridge called Akabashi, or Red Bridge, and tradition reserved it for the shogun while ordinary visitors used the flat side bridges. The present stone bridge is the second: the earlier bridge collapsed in the 1923 earthquake and was rebuilt in 1927. A barrier now closes the central bridge, while two red-painted pedestrian bridges remain open on either side.
An island in the Minamoto Pond contains Hataage Benzaiten Shrine, dedicated to Benzaiten, a Buddhist deity associated with water, music, eloquence, and prosperity. The subsidiary shrine was dismantled in 1868 during the separation of Shinto and Buddhism and rebuilt in 1956. Near Shirahata Shrine is the Yui Wakamiya Yōhaijo, a place for worshipping the distant Yui Wakamiya, or Moto Hachiman, at Zaimokuza. Two adjacent stones there are traditionally said to reveal the outline of a turtle when water is poured over them.
Maruyama Inari Shrine stands to the left of the Upper Shrine and is approached through numerous torii. Shirahata Shrine lies several hundred metres to the right of the Lower Shrine. These subsidiary sanctuaries form part of the wider arrangement of buildings and sacred spaces around the two principal shrine levels.
Landscape, trees, and surviving collections
The shrine and city were planned according to Feng Shui, a system of arranging buildings and landscapes in relation to directional forces and auspicious natural features. The site was associated with a mountain to the north, the Namerikawa River to the east, the Kotō Kaidō road to the west, and an unobstructed southern view toward Sagami Bay. Genbu, Seiryū, Byakko, and Suzaku symbolically guarded the four directions. Willows near the ponds and catalpa trees beside the museum represented Seiryū and Byakko.
A ginkgo once stood beside the great stairway. It was traditionally said to have been present almost from the shrine’s foundation and became known as the “hiding ginkgo” because of the later story linking it with Kugyō’s attack on Sanetomo. The tree was designated a Kanagawa Prefectural Natural Monument in 1955 and regarded as a symbol of the shrine. Strong winds uprooted it at about 4:40 a.m. on March 10, 2010. It was cut into three sections, with a section extending 4 metres above the base transplanted 7 metres away. The other sections were preserved within the grounds, and new shoots later appeared from both the remaining roots and the transplanted trunk.
The grounds include a peony garden beside the Minamoto Pond, the former site of a raised pigeon house used until the 1980s, and a kindergarten established in 1950. The Kamakura Museum of National Treasures stores numerous national treasures and important cultural properties deposited by temples and shrines throughout Kamakura. Its main building is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property. Associated holdings include ancient sacred garments, lacquered bows and arrows, decorated quivers, decorated swords, a lacquered writing box, and swords attributed to Masatsune, Kuniyoshi, Nagamitsu, Tsunahiro, Tsunaya, and Yasukuni.
