Ima Hachiman Shrine Main Hall

What the Ima Hachiman Shrine Main Hall is

The Ima Hachiman Shrine Main Hall (今八幡宮本殿, Ima Hachimangū Honden) is the late Muromachi sanctuary of Ima Hachiman Shrine in Yawatanobaba, Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, traditionally rebuilt by Ōuchi Yoshioki in 1503 and designated an Important Cultural Property in 1907.

A honden houses the deity, and worshippers pray toward it rather than enter it. This one is a three-bay hall in the Nagare-zukuri style, in which the front slope of the roof runs long over the entrance, with a one-bay Kōhai porch in front and a roof of Kokerabuki wood shingles. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to the late Muromachi period, a span it gives as 1467 to 1572. It stands at the very back of the shrine, joined to the worship hall in front by a short roofed link.

The listing for the Ima Hachiman Shrine Main Hall also covers three kūden, the miniature shrines kept inside the sanctuary, and two ridge tablets recording the building work. These Tsuketari attached items were added on February 3, 1979.

How the Ima Hachiman Shrine Main Hall is built

Yamaguchi Prefecture's register gives the core of the building as three bays wide and two deep, measuring 6.28 meters across between pillar centers. Front to back it measures 6.11 meters, split into an inner sanctum of 3.98 meters and an outer chamber of 2.13 meters. In plan it is close to a square, divided into a sacred rear room and a front room for ritual.

The two rooms use different pillars. The inner sanctum stands on round pillars, while the outer chamber and the porch use square posts with heavily chamfered corners. The inner sanctum has double doors across all three front bays and in the front bay of each side, which the register describes as vermilion-lacquered plank doors. The outer chamber has sliding plank doors on the sides and hinged lattice Shitomido shutters across the front.

A wooden stair of six steps rises at the front, its wooden newel posts capped with onion-shaped giboshi finials. A veranda wraps the front and both sides, stepping down a level along the sides before turning across the front. The eaves are built up in two tiers, the lower edged with cypress bark and the upper, like the main roof surface, in shingles, according to the register.

Why the Ima Hachiman Shrine Main Hall matters: the carved brackets

The feature to seek out at the Ima Hachiman Shrine Main Hall is its set of Kaerumata, the frog-leg shaped blocks between the bracket sets. Yamaguchi Prefecture counts more than ten around the inner and outer chambers, carved with peony-like plants, clouds with sun and moon, and water with fish. The prefecture's tourism site singles out designs such as heavenly bodies and sacred jewels as rarely found elsewhere.

Their outlines carry a date of their own. The prefecture sees the shape and carving technique as typical of the mid-Muromachi period. The shrine describes them as caught in transition, between the flat Muromachi form and the thicker, deeper carving of the Momoyama period.

The Ima Hachiman Shrine Main Hall entered national protection on May 27, 1907, the same day as the worship hall and the gate, as a Special Protection Building under Home Ministry Notice No. 63. The prefecture praises it for robust workmanship and fine carving that show the character of Muromachi shrine building clearly.

Seeing the Ima Hachiman Shrine Main Hall

The shrine treats the Ima Hachiman Shrine Main Hall as especially sacred and does not admit the public. The worship hall and the gate stand in front of it on the same line, so from the approach you see almost nothing of it. The exterior is best viewed from the side of the grounds, where the flank and roof come into view.

The carved brackets sit high under the eaves and are hard to read with the naked eye. Binoculars make it much easier to compare the designs. Check notices on site or ask at the shrine office about photography. Directions and visiting conditions for the shrine as a whole are on the Ima Hachiman Shrine page.