Suwa Taisha (Kamisha Honmiya)

photo by Saigen Jiro · CC0

photo by Saigen Jiro · CC0

It has no main building: its sacred body is the mountain behind the altar.

The shrine is one of the four that make up Suwa Taisha, around Lake Suwa: Honmiya and Maemiya on the Kami side, Harumiya and Akimiya on the Shimo side. Arriving at the Honmiya you will not find a honden: as at the other three of the four sites, directly behind the altar stands the sacred mountain, a divine body without a statue or a building to contain it.

Its origins go back to the Kojiki myth of the ceding of the land; it is among the oldest shrines in Japan. Raised to a national shrine of the first rank in the Meiji period, the Honmiya is the most important of the four sites that make up Suwa Taisha, dedicated to the god Takeminakata.

ℹ️ The shrine is always accessible, with free entry. At each corner of the four main buildings stands a fir trunk (onbashira), renewed every seven years counted the Japanese way, in the years of the Tiger and the Monkey: the next edition is in 2028, with the hauling of the trunks (yamadashi) in April and the raising (satobiki) in May, a rite more than 1,200 years old and the shrine's most important.

🚉 上社北参道 · 2 min walk

Sources: suwataisha.or.jp · onbashira.jp

All series · Open the map