is a

Shinto shrine A Stuart D. B. Picken, 1994. p. xxiii is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more kami, , the deities of the Shinto religion. The Also called the . is where a shrine's patron is or are enshrined.Iwanami Japanese dic ...

in Dazaifu,

Fukuoka Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Fukuoka Prefecture has a population of 5,109,323 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,986 Square kilometre, km2 (1,925 sq mi). Fukuoka Prefecture borders ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It is built over the grave of

Sugawara no Michizane , or , was a scholar, poet, and politician of the Heian period of Japan. He is regarded as an excellent poet, particularly in '' waka'' and '' kanshi'' poetry, and is today revered in Shinto as the god of learning, . In the famed poem anthology ' ...

(845–903) and is one of the main shrines dedicated to Tenjin, the deified form of Michizane.

Shrine legend

According to legend, Michizane was a gifted student who composed many poems dedicated to his favorite plum trees. Said to be favored by the gods, Michizane raised the ire of the

Fujiwara clan The was a powerful family of imperial regents in Japan, descending from the Nakatomi clan and, as legend held, through them their ancestral god Ame-no-Koyane. The Fujiwara prospered since ancient times and dominated the imperial court until th ...

, who exiled him to

Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's Japanese archipelago, four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa Island, Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Ryukyu Islands, Islands ...

. Michizane spent his exile studying, and died at the age of 57. When Michizane died, his body was carried by an ox that stopped near a Buddhist monastery. Unable to move the body along, Michizane was buried there by his follower, Umasake no Yasuyuki, and the shrine was built there. Today, a statue of an ox stands nearby to commemorate the event. It's also said that the plum tree inside the shrine flew from Kyoto to be reunited with Michizane in his death, and that it is always the first plum tree to bloom in Japan. Soon after Michizane died, five members of the Fujiwara clan, the royal family involved in Michizane's exile, died, one from a lightning strike that struck the clan's castle. Michizane, deified as Tenjin, was thus seen as a vengeful spirit. When disasters struck Kyoto, the Fujiwara clan aimed to appease Michizane's spirit and, as penance, reinstated his position and rank posthumously. Through this appeasement, Tenjin's reputation became associated with literature and education.

Shrine grounds

The shrine's precinct spans over and includes several structures. Its ''

honden In Shinto shrine architecture, the , also called , or sometimes as in Ise Shrine's case, is the most sacred building at a Shinto shrine, intended purely for the use of the enshrined ''kami'', usually symbolized by a mirror or sometimes by a sta ...

'', or main shrine, was first built by Yasuyuki Umasake in 905, two years after the death of Michizane. A larger structure was constructed by the

in 919 but was destroyed in a fire during a civil war. The Momoyama-style shrine visitors see today dates from 1591 and is an Important Cultural Property. The grounds also contain two ponds, a bridge and a treasure house. One pond is a traditional garden style, ''shinji ike'', named for being shaped to resemble the kanji character for "heart." As well as the main shrine dedicated to Tenjin there are auxiliary and branch shrines of many other

kami are the Deity, deities, Divinity, divinities, Spirit (supernatural entity), spirits, mythological, spiritual, or natural phenomena that are venerated in the traditional Shinto religion of Japan. ''Kami'' can be elements of the landscape, forc ...

. The auxiliary shrine honden is an Important Cultural Property. The shrine is also known for its 6,000 ''

ume ''Prunus mume'', the Chinese plum or Japanese apricot, is a tree species in the family Rosaceae. Along with bamboo, the plant is intimately associated with art, literature, and everyday life in China, from where it was then introduced to Kor ...

'' (Asian plum) trees belonging to 167 varieties. One tree, known as ''Tobiume'', stands directly to the right of the ''honden''. Legend has it that after Michizane left

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

in exile, he yearned so much for this tree that it uprooted itself and flew to Dazaifu Tenman-gū. Since May 2023, the ''honden'' has been undergoing renovations for the first time in 124 years. A temporary hall designed by architect

Sou Fujimoto is a Japanese architect. Born in Hokkaido in 1971, he graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1994, and established his own office, Sou Fujimoto Architects, in 2000. Noted for delicate light structures and permeable enclosures, Fujimoto desig ...

has been constructed in front of the ''honden'' and will stay there for the duration of the renovations, which are expected to take about three years. There are 46 types of plants, including Japanese plum trees, planted on the roof of the temporary hall. Dazaifu_tenmangu_shrine_temporary_main_hall

Dazaifu_tenmangu_shrine_temporary_main_hall

Cuisine

Alongside the path to the shrine are shops selling ' , a grilled

azuki bean ''Vigna angularis'', also known as the , azuki bean, aduki bean, red bean, or red mung bean, is an annual vine widely cultivated throughout East Asia for its small (approximately long) bean. The cultivars most familiar in East Asia have a un ...

cake stamped with the pattern of a plum tree flower. These snacks are strongly associated with the shrine for their connection to the legend of Michizane. It is said that an elderly caretaker, Jomyoni, prepared the snacks for him, and left one as an offering when he died.

Treasures

The Hōmotsuden houses items including: * Kan'en, a tenth-century history and

ethnography Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

(

National Treasure A national treasure is a structure, artifact, object or cultural work that is officially or popularly recognized as having particular value to the nation, or representing the ideals of the nation. The term has also been applied to individuals or ...

) * a

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

tachi A is a type of sabre-like traditionally made Japanese sword (''nihonto'') worn by the samurai class of feudal Japan. ''Tachi'' and '' uchigatana'' ("''katana''") generally differ in length, degree of curvature, and how they were worn when she ...

(Important Cultural Property) * a

Kamakura period The is a period of History of Japan, Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the G ...

(Important Cultural Property) * a

Muromachi period The , also known as the , is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate ( or ), which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi ...

painted stand (Important Cultural Property) * documents dating from the

to the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

important to the history of Dazaifu and

( Important Cultural Property)

Notes

External links