Togakushi Jinja (Chūsha) 戸隠神社中社
The avenue to the shrine at the top runs between cryptomerias more than 400 years old.
One of the five Togakushi shrines (Okusha, Chūsha, Hōkōsha, Kuzuryūsha, Hinomikosha), at an altitude of 1,200 metres in the north of Nagano. According to legend, the whole mountain is the rock that Ame-no-Tajikarao hurled away when he opened the heavenly cave where the sun goddess Amaterasu had hidden. Until 1868 worship here fused esoteric Buddhism and Shinto (shugendō): the ascetic syncretism of Buddhism and mountain worship made Togakushi one of the historic centres of shugendō, until the forced separation of the two religions imposed on it the Shinto identity it has today.
Nagano
戸隠中社, [object Object]
