Kubo Hachiman Shrine

Kubo Hachiman Shrine and Its History

Kubo Hachiman Shrine (窪八幡神社) in Kita, Yamanashi City, Yamanashi Prefecture, is a Hachiman shrine said to have been founded in 859, and its main hall of 1519 and eight other buildings are each designated an Important Cultural Property. Its formal name is Ōimata Kubo Hachiman Jinja (大井俣窪八幡神社), and people in the area simply call it Kubo Hachiman.

According to the shrine chronicle Ōimata Jinja Hongi, as summarized by Yamanashi City, Emperor Seiwa ordered the Hachiman deities of Usa Hachimangū in Kyushu to be installed on Ōimata, a sandbar island in the Fuefuki River, which gave the shrine its first name. It was later moved north to Kubo, the spot that gave it the name it carries today.

In the sixteenth century the shrine found powerful patrons in the Takeda, the warlord family that ruled Kai Province. The shrine's own history singles out Takeda Nobutora and his son Harunobu, the general remembered as Takeda Shingen, as especially devoted. Much of what stands at Kubo Hachiman now was built or rebuilt in their time, which is why late Muromachi buildings survive here as a group.

The painter Suda Kunitarō made the shrine the subject of his canvas Kubo Hachiman (1955), now in the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

Layout of the Precinct

Kubo Hachiman Shrine faces east, and visitors walk west through it. The first thing you meet is the wooden torii standing on the approach well east of the grounds. Beyond it a stone bridge crosses a small watercourse to the shrine gate, which also faces east.

Inside the gate, the front half of the grounds holds a pond with the small Hime Sanjin sanctuary on its island. The rear half rises on a stone retaining wall. Climb the steps and the long worship hall fills the view, with the main hall behind it.

North of the worship hall, the worship hall and sanctuary of the Wakamiya Hachiman auxiliary shrine stand one behind the other. To the south are the Kōra Shrine sanctuary and, beside the main hall, the Takeuchi Daijin sanctuary. The walk from the torii to the back of the precinct takes only minutes, so all nine designated buildings can be seen in one visit.

The Nine Important Cultural Properties

The Agency for Cultural Affairs database lists nine Important Cultural Properties at Kubo Hachiman Shrine. Dates below follow that database; where shrine records or inscriptions give a different year, the page for each building explains the difference.

• Main Hall (eleven-bay Nagare-zukuri, 1519)
• Worship Hall (Chōya) (1557)
• Wakamiya Hachiman Shrine Main Hall, an auxiliary shrine (mid-Muromachi period)
• Wakamiya Hachiman Shrine Worship Hall, an auxiliary shrine (1536)
• Kōra Shrine Main Hall, a subordinate shrine (1500)
• Takeuchi Daijin Main Hall, a subordinate shrine (1500)
• Hime Sanjin Main Hall, a subordinate shrine (1625)
• Shinmon Gate (1511)
• Torii (1535)

The main hall was designated in 1907 and the other eight in 1949. A few further items in the grounds are protected at the prefectural level.

Getting to Kubo Hachiman Shrine

The shrine's address is 654 Kita, Yamanashi City. According to the shrine, it is about 10 minutes by taxi from JR Yamanashi-shi Station on the Chūō Line, and about 30 minutes by car from the Katsunuma interchange of the Chūō Expressway.

There is parking close to the grounds, although the prefectural tourism pages give two different figures, 5 cars and 20 cars. On festival days it is worth calling the shrine first (0553-23-5390). Entry to the grounds is free.

The building interiors are normally closed, so a visit centers on the exteriors. Official sources say nothing about restricting photography of the buildings from outside, but it is polite to put the camera away during rites and prayers. The annual grand festival takes place in October, and the cherry trees in the grounds usually bloom in early April.