Miyazaki Shrine

A Shrine to the First Emperor

Miyazaki Shrine stands in the Jingu district of Miyazaki City, Miyazaki Prefecture, and eleven of its structures, the shrine buildings completed in 1907 together with a museum building of 1909, were entered on the national list as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 15 January 2010.

The deity enshrined here is Kamuyamato Iwarebiko, remembered as Emperor Jimmu, counted as the first sovereign of Japan. His father Ugayafukiaezu and his mother Tamayorihime are worshipped alongside him. Locally the shrine has long been called Jimmu-sama, a name that refers both to the deity and to the autumn procession held in his honour.

Shrine tradition holds that the site was consecrated by Takeiwatatsu, a grandson of Emperor Jimmu, when he took up office in Kyushu, in order to honour his grandfather. Before the Meiji period the place was known as Jimmu Tenno-gu or Jimmu Tenno-sha. It was renamed Miyazaki Shrine in 1873, Miyazaki-gu in 1878, and took its present name in 1913.

Eight Years of Rebuilding

The buildings standing at Miyazaki Shrine today are the product of a single Meiji-period campaign. In 1898 a committee was formed under Nijō Motohiro, Shimazu Tadaakira and Takaki Kanehiro, and the great festival of September 1899 marking the 2,600th year since the birth of Emperor Jimmu gave the movement its occasion. Grants from the imperial household, government funding and subscriptions gathered across the country paid for the work, which ran for the better part of eight years and finished in 1907.

The architect was Itō Chūta. A surveyor of East Asian historic buildings who effectively founded the academic study of Japanese architecture, he also planned Meiji Shrine and the gate of Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. At Miyazaki he chose a deliberately archaic and restrained manner and laid the precinct out symmetrically about a north-south axis. The timber is Sano cedar, cut locally from trees more than a century old.

In 1940, the 2,600th anniversary of the accession of Emperor Jimmu, the grounds were enlarged and the museum building was rebuilt as part of the same programme. The shrine today holds a precinct of roughly 25 hectares.

Walking the Precinct

The registered structures at Miyazaki Shrine sit almost in a single line along the north-south approach, and the clearest way to read them is to walk from the south.

The first is the main gate, a four-legged gate with an opening 5.5 meters wide. Running east and west from its flanks is the tamagaki, a roofed fence 119 meters long that encloses a forecourt before the gate. Through the gate stands the haisho, a worship structure open on all four sides; this is where visitors stop and pay their respects.

North of it lies the offering hall, seven bays long with its ridge running east to west, the largest building in the precinct. A covered corridor leaves its north face and runs to the sanctuary, which stands at the far end with the Funatsuka tumulus rising behind it. Wrapped around that sanctuary in a half-octagon is the sukimagaki, an 88-meter fence of vertical lattice set above plain boarding.

The food-offering hall and the imperial rest house, from whose north faces the sukimagaki begins, double as part of the enclosure. A stone fence marks a further line outside them. These ten structures all date from 1907. Set apart from them, in trees southeast of the gate, is the Chokokan, a two-storey timber building of 1909 whose walls are entirely clad in lattice-jointed tile.

The Eleven Registered Structures

All eleven were registered on 15 January 2010 and gazetted on 3 February, carrying numbers 45-0056 through 45-0066.

• Shinden, the sanctuary (45-0056)
• Heiden, the offering hall (45-0057)
• Watari-den, the connecting corridor (45-0058)
• Shinsenjo, the food-offering hall (45-0059)
• Goryoya, the imperial rest house (45-0060)
• Sukimagaki, the lattice fence (45-0061)
• Haisho, the worship hall (45-0062)
• Seimon, the main gate (45-0063)
• Tamagaki, the roofed fence (45-0064)
• Ishisaku, the stone fence (45-0065)
• Chokokan, the museum building (45-0066)

The sanctuary was cited as a model of design. The other ten were listed on the ground that they contribute to the historic landscape of the nation.

The Annual Festival

The annual festival of Miyazaki Shrine falls on 26 October. Tradition holds that the day the deity set out from the province of Hyuga corresponds to 27 October in the modern calendar, and the festival was fixed on the day before.

On the Saturday and Sunday following, the procession known as Jimmu-sama goes out through the city, the largest festival in the prefecture. The present marching formation took shape from about 1909, and mounted archery and horse processions were added later. The precinct and the approach are crowded throughout, so anyone hoping to look at the buildings quietly should plan around these dates.

Two further rites are held annually, a prayer for the harvest on 17 February and a thanksgiving on 23 November.

Hours and Conditions

The precinct of Miyazaki Shrine is open and free to enter. Opening and closing times are published for each part of the grounds.

• Gate: open 5:30 a.m., closed 5:30 p.m., year-round
• Offering hall: opened 6 a.m., closed 5:30 p.m., year-round
• Amulet counter: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Prayer requests: 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with changes at New Year and in the Shichi-go-san season

Of the registered structures, only the open-sided worship hall can be entered. The interiors of the offering hall and the sanctuary are closed, and the ground within the lattice fence is not accessible. The Chokokan is not currently run as a visitor-facing museum and is viewed from outside. No photography restriction is published for the precinct, though it is better to hold off while a rite or a prayer service is under way.

Getting to Miyazaki Shrine

The nearest station is Miyazaki-jingū on the JR Nippō Main Line, about 10 minutes away on foot. City buses run from Miyazaki Station by way of the department store stop, and from the Miyako City terminal; both call at Miyazaki-jingū, about 5 minutes from the grounds.

By taxi, allow about 10 minutes from JR Miyazaki Station and about 30 minutes from Miyazaki Airport. Airport buses also run to the Miyako City terminal and to Miyazaki Station. Drivers should use the Nishi-shin'en car park on the western side of the precinct.

The address is 2-chome Jingu, Miyazaki City, recorded in the national register as 2-485-1 Jingu and adjacent lots.