What shin-no-mihashira means
Shin-no-mihashira is the exceptionally thick pillar that stands at the centre of the plan in a Taisha-zukuri shrine sanctuary. The posts of such a hall are set in three rows of three, dividing the floor into four quarters, and the one in the middle carries this name. The Agency for Cultural Affairs, describing the main hall of Izumo Taisha, notes that the especially thick central pillar has been regarded as sacred since ancient times and that the interior is divided into front and back halves along a line through it.
The pillar carries the roof and floor like any structural member, but it is also given special meaning as the heart of the building. At Izumo the post in the middle of the front, called the uzu-bashira, is often discussed together with it. The uzu-bashira is a perimeter post standing at the centre of the gable end, and it differs from the central pillar in both position and role.
A similar-sounding word, shinbashira, names the central post of a three- or five-storey pagoda, which rises through the core of the tower to carry the finial. Records note for each pagoda where that post begins; the commentary on the five-storey pagoda of Myooin, for example, states that it stops at the second storey. The pagoda post and the shrine pillar belong to different kinds of building and do different structural work, and the two terms should not be confused.
Records and excavated remains
The pillar stands inside the sanctuary and cannot be seen on an ordinary visit. What the records confirm is a thick post at the centre of the plan, an interior divided front and back by it, and the inner shrine housing the deity placed beyond it.
Excavation has revealed the pillars of an earlier hall. Investigations in the precinct of Izumo Taisha from 2000 uncovered, in the remains of a sanctuary thought to date from the rebuilding of 1248, the bases of the central pillar, the front-centre uzu-bashira and the south-east corner post. According to the Shimane Prefectural Board of Education, all are of Japanese cedar, and each pillar was made of three trunks more than 1 metre across bound together, reaching about 2.7 metres in diameter as a bundle. The nine-post plan was evidently kept in the medieval hall as well.
The central post of other taisha-zukuri halls, such as the main hall of Kamosu Shrine, is called by the same name. When an article mentions the pillar, it helps to state whether it means the post in the present building or the excavated base of an earlier one, so that the reference matches the right record.
References
- 出雲大社本殿｜国指定文化財等データベース（文化庁）
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/102/2971
- 出雲大社境内遺跡出土品について（教育委員会会議録）｜島根県
- https://www.pref.shimane.lg.jp/education/kyoiku/iinkai/joho/iinkai_gidai/h20kaigiroku/h20_1431/giketu41.html
- 島根の史跡 出雲大社｜島根県
- https://www.pref.shimane.lg.jp/life/bunka/bunkazai/shiseki/shisekidesu/shiseki09.html
- 明王院五重塔｜文化遺産オンライン
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/195800
Last verified: 2026.09.26