Database: Iwashimizu Shrine

This shrine dedicated to the deity Hachiman is located on a height, Mount Otokoyama, overlooking the Yodo River south of Kyoto. It is a sacred place and protects the capital from negative influence.

The lwashimizu Shrine is said to have been founded around 859 by Gyôkô, a monk from Nara. Gyôkô invited the great deity Hachiman from Usa in Kyushu to come reside near the Imperial Court. In Usa, the mythical Emperor Ôjin, perhaps one of the five great kings of the 5th century, and his mother, Empress Jingû, a conquering female figure, were both venerated. It was recorded in chronicles that she invaded the Korean kingdom of Silla. Near Usa, there was a significant community of Korean immigrants and a copper mine where coins were minted. The divine entity of Usa, Hachiman, protected the mine.

The new shrine quickly became an object of veneration by the Court and notably the imperial famiy. As a result, the shrine became a place of imperial pilgrimage. Exorcism and magic rituals were practiced there whenever the country faced a political crisis or a natural disaster.

From the 12th century, the deity Hachiman, whose connotation with war was present from the beginning, was recognized as protecting the Minamoto clan, the origin of the first shogunate, and Hachiman gradually became assimilated as a god of war. Kamakura, the capital of the shogunal regime in the south of Kanto, was built around the Tsurugaoka Shrine, where the deity Hachiman was invited to reside.

However, the Iwashimizu Shrine near Kyoto retained all its power throughout the Middle Ages, heading a large number of domains (shoen). Due to its strategic position south of the capital, the lwashimizu Shrine repeatedly suffered the disasters of war between the 14th and 16th centuries. It was rebuilt under Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu in the 1620s-1640s.