Chōkaisan Ōmonoimi Shrine ( ja, 鳥海山大物忌神社), also known as Chokaisan Ōmonoimi-jinja, 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, mean ...

Mount Chokai Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...

Yamagata Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Yamagata Prefecture has a population of 1,079,950 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 9,325 km² (3,600 sq mi). Yamagata Prefecture borders Akita Prefecture to the nort ...

, Japan. The shrine has three parts on different parts of the mountain: Fukura-kuchinomiya and Warabioka-kuchinomiya at the foot of the mountain and easier to access for visitors, and the main shrine known as Sanchō-Gohonsha on the mountain's summit. The Shrine is a national historic site. The shrine is primarily dedicated to

Omonoimi no Kami Toyouke-hime is the goddess of agriculture, industry, food, clothing, and houses in the Shinto religion. Originally enshrined in the Tanba region of Japan, she was called to reside at Gekū, Ise Shrine, about 1,500 years ago at the age of Emp ...

, the unique

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 ...

of the shrine, but also worships

Toyoukebime Toyouke-Ōmikami is the goddess of agriculture and industry in the Shinto religion. Originally enshrined in the Tanba region of Japan, she was called to reside at Gekū, Ise Shrine, about 1,500 years ago at the age of Emperor Yūryaku to offer s ...

and

Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto , or simply or , is the moon god in Japanese mythology and the Shinto religion. The name "Tsukuyomi" is a compound of the Old Japanese words and . The '' Nihon Shoki'' mentions this name spelled as , but this ''yumi'' is likely a variation in ...

. Omonoimi no Kami is considered possibly identical to who is also worshipped at the Warabioka subshrine. Omonoimi no Kami is primarily associated with industrial growth and is also enshrined in other places in the

Tōhoku region The , Northeast region, or consists of the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. This traditional region consists of six prefectures (''ken''): Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata. Tōhoku ret ...

, including . The shrine directly worships the mountain as a

Kannabi refers to a region in shinto that hosts a mitsumashiro or yorishiro (yorishiro) in which the divine spirit (Kami or Goryo) resides. Or, the natural environment as Kamishiro (shintai). In the Manyoshu, there are seven occurrences (22 poems, 23 ...

. This is a rare practice and the only major shrines that continue the practice of direct

Mountain Worship Mountain worship (sangaku shinko, ) is a faith that regards mountains as sacred and objects of worship. Description Mountain worship is a form of Nature worship that seems to have evolved from the reverence that ethnic groups closely associate ...

via

are

Ōmiwa Shrine , also known as , is a Shinto shrine located in Sakurai, Nara Prefecture, Japan. The shrine is noted because it contains no sacred images or objects because it is believed to serve Mount Miwa, the mountain on which it stands. For the same re ...

and

Suwa-taisha , historically also known as Suwa Shrine (諏訪神社 ''Suwa-jinja'') or , is a group of Shinto shrines in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. The shrine complex is the ''ichinomiya'' of former Shinano Province and is considered to be one of the oldest sh ...

and Kanasana Shrine. The shrine is the

Dewa Province was a province of Japan comprising modern-day Yamagata Prefecture and Akita Prefecture, except for the city of Kazuno and the town of Kosaka. Dewa bordered on Mutsu and Echigō Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was . History Early per ...

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 ...

, or the first ranked shrine of the

. It is close to the

Three Mountains of Dewa The refer to the three sacred mountains of Mount Haguro, Mount Gassan and Mount Yudono, which are clustered together in the ancient province of Dewa (modern-day Yamagata Prefecture). Holy to the Japanese Shinto religion and especially the mounta ...

which are also prominent spots of

. It is similar to

Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha The is a Shintō shrine in the city of Fujinomiya in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. It is the ''ichinomiya'' of former Suruga Province, and is the head shrine of the approximately 1300 Asama or Sengen shrines in the country. The shrine has an ...

Mount Fuji , or Fugaku, located on the island of Honshū, is the highest mountain in Japan, with a summit elevation of . It is the second-highest volcano located on an island in Asia (after Mount Kerinci on the island of Sumatra), and seventh-highes ...

History

The mountain has been worshipped since ancient times, and its god

has been identified with the mountain itself. Traditions vary about the founding of the main shrine with some saying during it was founded during the reign of

Emperor Keikō , also known as and , was the 12th legendary Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Both the ''Kojiki'', and the ''Nihon Shoki'' (collectively known as the ''Kiki'') record events that took place during Keikō's all ...

and others saying it was founded during the reign of

Emperor Kinmei was the 29th Emperor of Japan, Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 欽明天皇 (29) retrieved 2013-8-22. according to the traditional order of succession. Titsingh, Isaac. (1834)pp. 34–36 Brown, Delmer. (1979) ''Gukanshō,'' pp. 261– ...

. The repeated destruction of the main shrine means archaeological evidence is difficult to find. However the two shrines at the foot of the mountain are known to have been founded in 564 in the reign of

. Early mentions of the shrine include the

Engishiki Jinmyocho 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 ...

where it is listed as a

Myojin Taisha 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 ...

, a very highly ranked shrine and mentions 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 ...

whjere an oracle foretold the Imperial Army's defeat in 878 and 879. In history every time the volcano erupted, the

rank Rank is the relative position, value, worth, complexity, power, importance, authority, level, etc. of a person or object within a ranking, such as: Level or position in a hierarchical organization * Academic rank * Diplomatic rank * Hierarchy * H ...

was increased. This meant more lands were given to the shrine and it became wealthier and more powerful. Eruptions were interpreted as his anger. Once it was said that a corpse was improperly disposed of near the mountain. At that point a massive eruption happened and dark muddy water flowed down the rivers which were dammed by dead fish.

is known to have received the rank of Shōichii in the reign of

Emperor Yōmei was the 31st Emperor of Japan,Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 用明天皇 (31)/ref> according to the traditional order of succession. Yōmei's reign spanned the years from 585 until his death in 587. Traditional narrative He was call ...

. The shrine has been a prominent place of shugendo since the Middle Ages. A medieval buddhist myth of the temple says it was founded by the Buddhist monk

En no Gyōja ( b. 634, in Katsuragi (modern Nara Prefecture); d. c. 700–707) was a Japanese ascetic and mystic, traditionally held to be the founder of Shugendō, the path of ascetic training practiced by the ''gyōja'' or ''yamabushi''. He was banis ...

for "Chokai Daigongen". This myth is most associated with Warabioka. Other myths involve other Buddhist monks like

Ennin , better known in Japan by his posthumous name, Jikaku Daishi (), was a priest of the Tendai school of Buddhism in Japan, and its third . Ennin was instrumental in expanding the Tendai Order's influence, and bringing back crucial training and ...

Kūkai Kūkai (; 27 July 774 – 22 April 835Kūkai was born in 774, the 5th year of the Hōki era; his exact date of birth was designated as the fifteenth day of the sixth month of the Japanese lunar calendar, some 400 years later, by the Shingon s ...

. The shrine was subject to a legal battle after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

because people were confused about who owned the summit with the end of

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 as ...

, as of 1966 the battle was still ongoing. In 2008, the area from the summit to Kuchinomiya became a National Historic Site.

Festivals

The shrine has a festival every year on July 14 called Hi-awase shinji (火合せ神事). During the festival all across

fires are lit simultaneously at this shrine and other Omonoimi shrines including one in

Sakata, Yamagata is a city located in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 106,244 in 39,320 households, and a population density of 180 people per km2. The total area of the city is . History The area of present-day Sakata was ...

for good harvest and good fishing.

Sanchō-Gohonsha

Sanchō-Gohonsha is the main shrine and it is located on the peak of

. It looks like an ordinary cabin on the outside. The shrine is rebuilt once every 20 years, it was rebuilt in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

Gallery

File:鳥海山大物忌引神社2010.08.13.JPG, Very distant photo demonstrating the scale of the mountain File:Chokaisan Omonoimi Jinja Sancho Honden.jpg, Birds eye view of the shrine complex File:Sanchou-Gohonsha Gate.JPG, Torii File:大物忌神社と御室.jpg, Torii from behind File:Precincts of Sanchou-Gohonsha.JPG, Approaching the Honden File:Sanchou-Gohonsha Shinden.JPG, Mountain-top Main Shrine Honden

Fukura-kuchinomiya

Fukura-kuchinomiya is a subshrine located at the foot of the mountain. It is located 15 km west of the main shrine and 10 km northwest of Warabioka-kuchinomiya Local tradition says the shrine was founded by

The

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 s ...

is located on a hill and faces south.

is enshrined here. A lake called Maruikesama is worshipped nearby as a

. The lake is considered to be a Kami itself rather than merely one living in it.

Gallery

File:Hukura-kuchinomiya Gate.JPG, Entrance Torii File:Hukura haiden.JPG, Haiden File:Hukura Ryoushogu.JPG, Honden File:Hukura Honden.JPG, Honden from different angle

Warabioka-kuchinomiya

Warabioka-kuchinomiya is a subshrine located at the foot of the mountain. It is located 10 km southeast of Fukura-kuchinomiya, and 14 km southwest of Sancho-Gohonsha. The shrine worships agricultural deities Toyoke-Ookami and Ukanomitama no Mikoto. It is said in local tradition that the legendary Buddhist monk

founded the shrine. The shrine has four small

Hokora is a miniature Shinto shrine either found on the precincts of a larger shrine and dedicated to folk ''kami'', or on a street side, enshrining ''kami'' not under the jurisdiction of any large shrine.Encyclopedia of ShintoHokora Accessed on Dec ...

or subshrines of its own. There is a festival celebrated here on May 3 called Daimonbei Matsuri. There are three

torii A is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred. The presence of a ''torii'' at the entrance is usually the simples ...

gates and the movie Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends was filmed there.

Gallery

File:蕨口之宮一の鳥居.jpg, alt=Located at the base of the sanctuary., First Torii File:Warabioka-kuchinomiya Gate.JPG, Second Torii File:Warabioka-kuchinomiya 2nd Gate.JPG, Third Torii File:Warabioka Honden.JPG, Honden

Notelist

References

{{reflist Shinto shrines Shinto shrines in Yamagata Prefecture Shugendō Mountain faith Myōjin Taisha Kokuhei Chūsha 500s establishments Beppyo shrines En no Gyōja

History

Festivals

Sanchō-Gohonsha

Gallery

Fukura-kuchinomiya

Gallery

Warabioka-kuchinomiya

Gallery

See also

Notelist

References