Ushio Shrine Main Hall and Worship Hall (Auxiliary Shrine of Hiyoshi Taisha)

A Sanctuary on the Mountain

The Ushio Shrine Main Hall and Worship Hall, an auxiliary shrine of Hiyoshi Taisha near the summit of Hachiōjiyama in Sakamoto-honmachi, Ōtsu, Shiga Prefecture, were built in 1595 and designated an Important Cultural Property in 1907, with the Worship Hall added to that designation in 1983.

Ushio Shrine, also called Ushiogū, is one of the seven principal Sannō shrines. It enshrines the rough spirit of Ōyamakui no Kami, the deity whose calmer aspect is worshipped in the eastern sanctuary at the foot of the hill. Hiyoshi Taisha describes the eastern sanctuary and Jugegū as the lower shrines and Ushio Shrine and Sannomiya Shrine as the mountain ones.

Hachiōjiyama, also known as Ushioyama, rises to about 380 metres. Worship of this peak as the body of the deity is where the history of Hiyoshi Taisha begins. Near the top stands a large rock called Kogane no Ōiwa, with Ushio Shrine on one side of it and Sannomiya Shrine on the other. The Ushio Shrine Main Hall and Worship Hall were put up long after the mountain and the rock were already sacred.

Built Out Over the Drop

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the Worship Hall in a single dense line: kakezukuri construction, five bays by five, single-storeyed, hip-and-gable roofed at the front, joined to the Main Hall at the rear, with a cusped gable over the side eaves, and covered in cypress bark. Everything about the building is in that sentence.

Kakezukuri means assembling long posts on a slope and cantilevering the floor out from it. On flat ground the problem is solved with foundations; on a mountain it is solved with the length of the timbers. The Ushio Shrine Worship Hall carries a five-bay square platform out over the edge, and Ōtsu city names precisely this, the way the hall projects above the cliff, as its defining trait.

The second point is the relation between the two buildings. Where the Agency's text says the rear connects to the Main Hall, it means the worship hall and the sanctuary are physically joined. Ōtsu city puts it as the worship hall taking the sanctuary into itself. Down in the valley these are separate structures standing one behind the other; up here, with only a narrow shelf of level ground available, they have been merged.

The Main Hall is a three-bay nagare-zukuri sanctuary in cypress bark, the same form used by the auxiliary shrines below. Because the worship hall wraps it, you cannot see the front of it whole. The cusped gable over the side eaves comes into view once you walk round the flank of the building.

The Climb Is the Condition

Seeing the Ushio Shrine Main Hall and Worship Hall at close range means walking up. Hiyoshi Taisha gives the distance from the trailhead in the precinct as about one kilometre and the time as roughly thirty minutes each way. Stone steps appear only at the start and the finish; between them the path is a steep hill trail. No vehicle can make the trip.

The trailhead sits between the western and eastern compounds. Two small buildings flank it, the distant-worship halls for Ushiogū and Sannomiya, from which visitors who do not climb pay their respects toward the summit. The path itself is called Saru no Baba, the monkeys' riding ground.

At the top, the great rock comes into view first, with Ushio Shrine to its right. The projecting floor is best appreciated from below, looking up at where the posts leave the slope. Lake Biwa opens out behind you, but if the buildings are what brought you, the more rewarding view is the timber framing under the deck.

Once a year this becomes the starting point of a festival. Portable shrines are carried up here in early March and brought back down on the night of 12 April, the descent made by torchlight down the same steep path.

Visiting

There is no separate charge for these buildings. Pay the shrine contribution at the entrance, 500 yen for adults, 300 yen for junior and senior high school students, free for younger children and 450 yen each for groups of thirty or more, then walk up from the trailhead. The interiors are closed and viewing is from outside. Photography is unrestricted.

Come equipped. Hiyoshi Taisha advises hiking boots or at least trainers. The route runs thirty minutes each way with no vending machines along it, so carry water bought at the bottom. After rain, and in the months when the light goes early, allow extra time.

Precinct hours are 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with the gates opening at 6:00 a.m. from April to September and 7:00 a.m. from October to March. Since the round trip takes about an hour, starting late in the afternoon is unwise.

To reach the foot of the mountain, allow about ten minutes on foot from Sakamoto-Hieizanguchi Station on the Keihan Ishiyama Sakamoto Line, or twenty from Hieizan-Sakamoto Station on the JR Kosei Line. Free parking for around fifty cars is available, charged during November.