Hiyoshi Taisha West Shrine Main Hall and Worship Hall

What the Hiyoshi Taisha West Shrine Main Hall and Worship Hall Are

The Hiyoshi Taisha West Shrine Main Hall and Worship Hall, in the Sakamoto-honmachi district of Ōtsu in Shiga Prefecture, are two Momoyama-period shrine buildings: the Main Hall, made an Important Cultural Property in 1901 and raised to National Treasure status in 1961, and the Worship Hall, made an Important Cultural Property in 1964. The compound they belong to, Nishi Hongū (西本宮), is the western of the two principal sanctuaries at Hiyoshi Taisha and has long been known by the alternative name Ōmiya, meaning the great shrine.

Oda Nobunaga's troops burned Mount Hiei in 1571, and the shrine buildings at the foot of the mountain went with it. What stands now was put up in the rebuilding: the Main Hall in 1586, the Worship Hall in the same year. The Agency for Cultural Affairs record for the Main Hall notes major exterior repairs in 1597, only eleven years after construction.

The deity of the western sanctuary is said to have been brought from Ōmiwa Shrine in Yamato during the reign of Emperor Tenji, in the seventh century. Hiyoshi Taisha began instead with the mountain deity enshrined in the eastern sanctuary, so the western one is the later arrival. Through the medieval period it was nonetheless treated as the head of the complex, and the scale of these two buildings reflects that.

Hiyoshi-zukuri: A Roof That Stops at the Back

The Main Hall measures five bays by three and is roofed in cypress bark. Its form is called Hiyoshi-zukuri, and the Ōtsu city cultural properties office describes it as a structure found nowhere in Japan except at Hiyoshi Taisha. The shrine's own account limits it further: three sanctuaries use it, the two Hongū and Usagū.

The scheme is simple enough to grasp on site. A core of three bays by two is wrapped by a pent roof on the front and both sides. The back has none. Because the roof follows the plan, the building looks from the front like an ordinary hip-and-gable temple hall, then turns a corner and reveals eaves that simply stop. Old records describe the type as sangen-sanmen, three bays with three faces, and it is understood to preserve a layout current since the Heian period.

The second peculiarity is underneath. The floor is set high, and the space below holds a room called the geden. Until the separation of Shinto and Buddhism in the Meiji era, Buddhist images and paintings were kept there and monks performed rites in it. The fusion of Shinto and Buddhist practice is often described in terms of doctrine; here it took architectural form, in a chamber most visitors never see. The Agency for Cultural Affairs commentary singles this out as a point of particular interest.

Inside, the inner sanctuary is enclosed by plank walls with a single door at the centre of the front. The pent-roofed outer space wraps that closed core on three sides. The odd exterior of Hiyoshi-zukuri is nothing more than this interior arrangement pushed outward into the roofline.

What to Look at on Site

The Worship Hall is three bays square, single-storeyed, hip-and-gable roofed, entered from the gable end (Tsumairi), and covered in cypress bark. It has no walls on any side. The ceiling is a coffered ceiling with fine lattice work, raised a step higher at the centre, and that flat plane at height gives the open building a settled quality that the roof pitch alone would not. Rituals are still held here, so this is where visitors spend most of their time.

Walk through the Worship Hall and the Main Hall faces you. On its roof sit a wooden lion and a wooden guardian dog, the lion on the right as you look at the building. The shrine explains that such pairs originally stood inside the sanctuary guarding the deity, migrated onto the roof, and only later moved to the ground at entrances, where exposure to weather forced a switch from wood to stone. These have stayed wooden because they have stayed sheltered.

Then look down. The Hiyoshi Taisha West Shrine Main Hall and Worship Hall sit on deliberately raised platforms, and the entrance to the geden beneath the Main Hall can be picked out from the approach. Few Shinto buildings treat the space under the floor as a room at all.

Visiting

The exteriors can be viewed freely once inside the Hiyoshi Taisha precinct. Admission is by a contribution of 500 yen for adults, 300 yen for junior and senior high school students, and free for children of primary school age and under; groups of thirty or more pay 450 yen each. The west reception desk, past the red torii, handles walk-in visitors; drivers pay at the east desk.

Standard hours are 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The two Hongū precincts open earlier: 6:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. from April to September, 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. from October to March.

The interior of the Main Hall is closed, with one exception. Booking the geden special prayer service gets you inside the building itself, at 20,000 yen for up to two petitions and 10,000 yen for each additional one beyond three; it takes about twenty minutes. Ordinary prayer services are conducted in the Worship Hall, with reception at the west sanctuary's amulet office from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and an offering from 5,000 yen for a single petition. Photography in the grounds is not restricted, though visitors are asked to refrain during services.

Sakamoto-Hieizanguchi Station on the Keihan Ishiyama Sakamoto Line is about a ten-minute walk away; Hieizan-Sakamoto Station on the JR Kosei Line is about twenty. Roughly fifty free parking spaces are available in the precinct, charged during November. A full circuit of the grounds takes about forty minutes, or ninety in the autumn foliage season.