) is a

Shinto 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, meanin ...

located in the city of Yasu,

Shiga Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Shiga Prefecture has a population of 1,412,916 (1 October 2015) and has a geographic area of . Shiga Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the north, Gifu Prefecture to the north ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

. The ''

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 ...

'' worshipped at this shrine is Ame-no-mikage-no-mikoto,

Amaterasu Amaterasu, also known as Amaterasu Ōmikami () or Ōhirume no Muchi no Kami (), is the goddess of the sun in Japanese mythology. One of the major deities (''kami'') of Shinto, she is also portrayed in Japan's earliest literary texts, the '' K ...

's grandson, who in legend, descended onto 432-meter

Mount Mikami Mount Mikami (, pronounced "Mikami Yama", meaning Mikami Mountain) is a mountain, above sea level, located in Yasu City, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. In spite of its relatively low altitude, it is also called "Ōmi Fuji", that is Mount Fuji of Ōmi P ...

during the reign of

Emperor Kōrei , also known as was the seventh legendary emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Very little is known about this Emperor due to a lack of material available for further verification and study. Kōrei is known as a ...

(290 - 215 BC) to become the ''

shintai In Shinto, , or when the honorific prefix ''go''- is used, are physical objects worshipped at or near Shinto shrines as repositories in which spirits or ''kami'' reside.''Shintai'', Encyclopedia of Shinto ''Shintai'' used in Shrine Shinto (Jin ...

'' of the mountain.

History

The foundation of Mikami Jinja is uncertain. While it is known that Fujiwara no Fuhito ordered the construction of a shrine at the current location in 718 AD,

archaeological excavation In archaeology, excavation is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains. An excavation site or "dig" is the area being studied. These locations range from one to several areas at a time during a project and can be condu ...

s have found the that the area was connected with rituals pertaining to Mount Mikami from a much earlier period. In 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 ...

, 24 '' dōtaku'' were excavated at the foot of the mountain, indicating that it was worshipped from the

Yayoi period The started at the beginning of the Neolithic in Japan, continued through the Bronze Age, and towards its end crossed into the Iron Age. Since the 1980s, scholars have argued that a period previously classified as a transition from the Jōm ...

. The shrine is mentioned in several occasions in the ''

Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku , abbreviated as Sandai Jitsuroku, is an officially commissioned Japanese history text. Completed in 901, it is the sixth and final text in the Six National Histories series. It covers the years 858–887. Background Following the earlier natio ...

'' completed in 901 and is also mentioned in the ''

Engishiki The is a Japanese book about laws and customs. The major part of the writing was completed in 927. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Engi-shiki''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 178. History In 905, Emperor Daigo ordered the compilation of th ...

'' list of shrines in

Ōmi Province was a province of Japan, which today comprises Shiga Prefecture. It was one of the provinces that made up the Tōsandō circuit. Its nickname is . Under the '' Engishiki'' classification system, Ōmi was ranked as one of the 13 "great countr ...

dated 927 AD. In 1876, following the

Meiji restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

and the establishment of the

Modern system of ranked Shinto shrines 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 (''kampeish ...

under

State Shinto was Imperial Japan's ideological use of the Japanese folk religion and traditions of Shinto. The state exercised control of shrine finances and training regimes for priests to strongly encourage Shinto practices that emphasized the Emperor a ...

, the shrine was officially designated a “county shrine”. It was promoted to the rank of “prefectural shrine” in 1913 and to ''Kanpei-taisha'', or Imperial shrine of the 2nd rank in 1924. Mikami Jinja is a ten-minute drive from Yasu Station on then

JR West , also referred to as , is one of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) companies and operates in western Honshu. It has its headquarters in Kita-ku, Osaka. It is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange, is a constituent of the TOPIX Large70 index, and i ...

Biwako Line The is the nickname used by the operator of the West Japan Railway Company (JR West) to refer to the portion of the Tōkaidō Main Line (between Maibara Station and Kyoto Station) and the Hokuriku Main Line (between Maibara Station and Nagaham ...

. Beppyo shrines

Cultural Properties

; : The shrine's main building is estimated to have been built in the latter half of the

Kamakura Period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle b ...

from its various stylistic details. If fuses Shinto shrine architecture with Buddhist elements such as ''Irimoya-zukuri'', style roof, plaster walls, and "Renko" windows. It was declared a protected building as early as 1899, but was formally designated as a National Treasure in 1952. ; : Dating from then later Kamukura period, it was designated as an Important Cultural Property (ICP) in 1899. ; : Dating from the late Kamakura period, it was designated as an ICP in 1899 ;: Belonging to a subsidiary shrine within the same compound, this structure dates from the late Muromachi period. It is designated as an ICP in 1931

Festivals

The "Zuiki Festival of Mikami", celebrated every October as a harvesting festival, is an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property.The Zuiki Festival as an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property
(in Japanese) The rice for

Emperor Showa Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...

's first Niiname Festival in 1925 was grown in a

paddy field A paddy field is a flooded field of arable land used for growing semiaquatic crops, most notably rice and taro. It originates from the Neolithic rice-farming cultures of the Yangtze River basin in southern China, associated with pre-A ...

nearby, which is celebrated every year in June by a rice planting ceremony.

Gallery

File:Mikami-jinja haiden-2.JPG, Haiden, ICP Wakamiya-jinja (Mikami-jinja).JPG, Wakamiya Jinja, ICP Mikami Jinja Rōmon-2.JPG, Rōmon, ICP File:Mikamiyama.jpg,

, as the shrine's ''

'' File:Mikami-jinja_okumiya.JPG, The Outer Shrine on top of Mount Mikami File:Mikami-jinja yuukisaiden.JPG, The rice for Emperor Showa was grown here.

References

External links