is a

Shintō shrine A is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more ''kami'', the deities of the Shinto religion. Overview Structurally, a Shinto shrine typically comprises several buildings. The '' honden''Also called (本殿, meani ...

in the city of

Hirosaki is a city located in western Aomori Prefecture, Japan. On 1 April 2020, the city had an estimated population of 168,739 in 71,716 households, and a population density of . The total area of the city is . Hirosaki developed as a castle town fo ...

Aomori Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan in the Tōhoku region. The prefecture's capital, largest city, and namesake is the city of Aomori. Aomori is the northernmost prefecture on Japan's main island, Honshu, and is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the eas ...

, Japan. It is the ''

ichinomiya is a Japanese historical term referring to the Shinto shrines with the highest rank in a province. Shrines of lower rank were designated , , , and so forth. ''Encyclopedia of Shinto'' ''Ichi no miya'' retrieved 2013-5-14. The term gave rise t ...

'' of former Tsugaru Domain. All of Mount Iwaki is considered to be a portion of the shrine. The main festival of the shrine, the ''Oyama-sankei'', features a parade from the shrine to the top of the mountain, and is held annually at the time of the

autumn equinox Autumnal equinox or variations, may refer to: * September equinox, the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere * March equinox, the autumnal equinox in the Southern Hemisphere Other uses * Autumnal Equinox Day (Japanese: 秋分の日, ''Shūbu ...

. The pilgrims carry colorful banners and are accompanied by traditional drums and flutes

Enshrined ''kami''

The primary ''

kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...

'' of Iwakiyama Shrine is the , referred to here as . Other ''kami'' include , , , , and .

History

The foundation of the Iwakiyama Shrine predates the historical period, and Mount Iwaki was a holy mountain for the local Emishi tribes. Per shrine tradition, the shrine was established on the summit of Mount Iwaki in the year 780. It was rebuilt by the folk-hero

Sakanoue no Tamuramaro was a court noble, general and ''shōgun'' of the early Heian period of Japan. He served as Dainagon, Minister of War and ''Ukon'e no Taisho'' (Major Captain of the Right Division of Inner Palace Guards). He held the '' kabane'' of Ōsukune ...

in the year 800 and dedicated to his father

Sakanoue no Karitamaro was a samurai commander, and later '' chinjufu-shōgun'' (Commander-in-chief of the defense of the North), during Japan's Nara period. Karitomo's father was Sakanoue no Inukai. In 764, Karitamaro aided in the repression of a revolt by Fujiwa ...

. Several subsidiary shrines were built around the base of the mountain in an area called the by the local inhabitants. One of these subsidiary shrines to the southeast of the mountain developed into the

Shingon Shingon monks at Mount Koya is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asia, originally spread from India to China through traveling monks such as Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra. Kn ...

sect

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

temple of in 1091, and became the predecessor of the present shrine. The three main peaks on Mount Iwaki were identified with the Buddhist deities of Amida Nyorai,

Yakushi Nyorai Bhaiṣajyaguru ( sa, भैषज्यगुरु, zh, t= , ja, 薬師仏, ko, 약사불, bo, སངས་རྒྱས་སྨན་བླ), or ''Bhaishajyaguru'', formally Bhaiṣajya-guru-vaiḍūrya-prabhā-rāja ("Medicine Master ...

and Kannon Bosatsu. During the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

’s government-ordered separation of Buddhism from Shinto, the temple became a Shinto shrine. In 1871, it was officially designated one of the ''

kokuhei-shōsha The was an organizational aspect of the establishment of Japanese State Shinto. This system classified Shinto shrines as either official government shrines or "other" shrines. The official shrines were divided into #Imperial shrines (''kampei ...

'' (国幣小社), or 3rd ranked national shrine under the State Shinto system until 1946.Bernstein, Andrew
"Whose Fuji?: Religion, Region, and State in the Fight for a National Symbol,"
''Monumenta Nipponica,'' Vol. 63, No. 1, Spring 2008, pp. 51-99; Ponsonby-Fane, Richard. (1959). ''The Imperial House of Japan,''

Notable structures

Many of the structures of Iwakiyama Shrine date from the early

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

, and were built in 1694 under the sponsorship of the

Tsugaru clan The was a Japanese samurai clan who ruled the northwestern half of what is now Aomori Prefecture in the Tōhoku region of Japan under the Edo period Tokugawa shogunate. The Tsugaru were ''daimyō'' of Hirosaki Domain and its semi-subsidiary, ...

Hirosaki Domain Hirosaki Castle, the seat of the Hirosaki Domain , also known as , was a '' tozama'' feudal domain of Edo period JapanRavina, Mark. (1998) ''Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan,'' p. 222 It is located in Mutsu Province, in northern Honsh� ...

. The two-story main gate (''Ryōmon'') was built in 1628. The '' Honden'', '' Heiden'', ''Oku-no-mon'' and Ryōmon are built in the '' yosegi-zukuri'' style with decorative wood carvings, which have given the shrine its nickname of “Oku-Nikko” after the more famous structures of the

Nikkō Tōshō-gū is a Tōshō-gū Shinto shrine located in Nikkō, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. Together with Futarasan Shrine and Rinnō-ji, it forms the Shrines and Temples of Nikkō UNESCO World Heritage Site, with 42 structures of the shrine included in t ...

. All of these buildings are registered as National Important Cultural Properties.

References

* Plutschow, Herbe. ''Matsuri: The Festivals of Japan''. RoutledgeCurzon (1996) * Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1962).
''Studies in Shinto and Shrines.''
Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society
OCLC 3994492
* Graham, Patricia J. ''Faith and Power in Japanese Buddhist Art, 1600-2005''. University of Hawaii Press (2008)

Notes

External links