Ariso Sho Hachimangu Shrine

Ariso Sho Hachimangu Shrine, guardian of the Kanaya casters

Ariso Sho Hachimangu Shrine (有礒正八幡宮, Ariso Shō Hachimangū) is a Shinto shrine in Yokota-machi, Takaoka City, Toyama Prefecture, whose three main buildings, a main hall built in 1883 and a tsuridono and a worship and offering hall built in 1935, were registered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on March 2, 2006.

The name is sometimes written 有磯 in tourist literature, and local people also call it Ariso Shrine. Hachimangu marks it as a shrine to Hachiman, the deity of warriors; the "Sho" (正) in front is an honorific whose exact origin the shrine itself says has not been handed down.

A proposal for the World Heritage Tentative List, prepared by Toyama Prefecture and Takaoka City, explains that the shrine was formed when the town of Takaoka was laid out in the Keicho era, by merging two older shrines: Ariso-gu and Yokota Sho Hachimangu. The shrine's own history dates the merger to 1610 and says flooding of the Senbo River moved it to its present site in 1612. Ariso-gu had guarded the "Ariso sea" from the shore at Amaharashi, while Yokota Sho Hachimangu was a Hachiman shrine, so two lines of worship now share one set of buildings. The stone walls around the grounds are said to have been offered by Maeda Toshinaga, the lord who built Takaoka Castle.

A bend on the old Hokuriku road

The Agency for Cultural Affairs' Japan Heritage portal places Ariso Sho Hachimangu Shrine at the end of a bend where the old Hokurikudo highway turned from Yokota toward Nakajima-machi, a spot that still keeps the feel of the old road. Cross Yokota Bridge over the Senbo River and the shrine faces you.

A few minutes' walk east lies Kanaya-machi, the casting quarter Toshinaga founded by inviting seven metal casters from Nishibe Kanaya in Tonami District. It is regarded as the birthplace of Takaoka's bronze and iron casting. Ariso Sho Hachimangu Shrine is the guardian shrine of Kanaya, and because it enshrines Ishikoridome no Mikoto, patron of casters, it has long been known as Nabemiya-sama, "the shrine of the pots."

That link is why the shrine buildings are listed among the components of Takaoka's Japan Heritage story on the townspeople's culture associated with the Kaga Maeda family (加賀前田家ゆかりの町民文化が花咲くまち高岡).

The three registered buildings of Ariso Sho Hachimangu Shrine

Walking up the approach you meet the worship hall and offering hall first. Behind them the tsuridono links through to the main hall at the back. Going from front to rear, the buildings get smaller: 159 square meters for the worship and offering hall, 30 for the tsuridono, and 21 for the main hall.

They belong to two periods. The main hall dates from 1883, and the prefectural and city proposal credits it to the master carpenter Matsui Kakuhei. Fifty-two years later, in 1935, the worship and offering hall and the tsuridono were added, completing the complex you see today. Every roof is clad in copper sheet.

Takaoka City's historic townscape plan singles out the many-gabled yatsumune-zukuri roof of the worship and offering hall, the hip-and-gable roof of the main hall, and the carved bracket work. The shrine calls this layered roofscape its own "Ariso-zukuri" style. The three buildings carry the consecutive registration numbers 16-0075 to 16-0077, all registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the nation.

Two further properties in the grounds are designated cultural properties of Takaoka City: a pair of bronze guardian figures on the approach, designated in 2014, and a portable shrine said to date from 1785, designated in 2001. According to the shrine, the bronze figures were set up in 1921.

Festivals: Goin-sai and Suitengu-sai

The busiest days at Ariso Sho Hachimangu Shrine come in June with the Goin-sai, held by the people of Kanaya-machi on June 20, the anniversary of Maeda Toshinaga's death, to thank him for founding their trade. Takaoka City's townscape plan explains that on the eve the sacred object is carried from the shrine to the Kanaya-machi community hall, where the ceremony is held. On the evening of June 19, dancers parade along Kanaya's stone-paved street to the Yagaebushi, a song that began as a work chant at the furnaces. The Takaoka tourism site lists the June 20 rite at the shrine for 7:00 p.m.

The Suitengu festival of Nakajima-machi is tied to the shrine too. Because floods had forced its sacred object to move several times, it is kept at Ariso Sho Hachimangu Shrine for safety and carried to Nakajima-machi on the festival day, after which a great number of lanterns are floated down the Senbo River.

Visiting Ariso Sho Hachimangu Shrine

The grounds of Ariso Sho Hachimangu Shrine are open for worship with no admission fee. The shrine office takes inquiries from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (tel. 0766-22-0334). Formal prayers inside the worship hall are by telephone reservation only, according to the shrine.

From Takaoka Station on the Ainokaze Toyama Railway it is about 25 minutes on foot or about 10 minutes by taxi. From Shin-Takaoka Station on the Hokuriku Shinkansen, take a Kaetsuno bus to the Kanaya stop and walk about 5 minutes. Drivers can use the worshippers' car park behind the shrine. The latticed townhouses of Kanaya-machi are only a few minutes away on foot.

The interiors of the main hall and the tsuridono are not open. How each building can be seen, and what to keep in mind when photographing, is covered on each building's page.