Kubo Hachiman Shrine Main Hall

What the Kubo Hachiman Shrine Main Hall Is

Kubo Hachiman Shrine Main Hall (窪八幡神社本殿, Kubo Hachiman Jinja Honden) stands at the back of the shrine grounds in Kita, Yamanashi City, Yamanashi Prefecture; it was built around 1519 and was designated an Important Cultural Property on August 28, 1907. Its form is an eleven-bay Nagare-zukuri sanctuary roofed in Hiwadabuki, layered cypress bark.

The building is really three sanctuaries under one continuous roof. Each is a three-bay nagare-zukuri shrine, and the three are joined side by side with a single bay left between neighbors, which gives a front eleven bays wide. The central sanctuary is dedicated to Emperor Ōjin, the northern one to Emperor Chūai and the southern one to Empress Jingū: Ōjin, identified with the god Hachiman, flanked by his father and mother.

Its date was only settled after the war. During the dismantling repair of 1951, carpenters found an ink inscription giving the year 1519, and in 2019 the shrine marked the hall's 500th anniversary with a public viewing and a lecture.

Why the Kubo Hachiman Main Hall Matters

Yamanashi City describes Kubo Hachiman Shrine Main Hall as the largest nagare-zukuri sanctuary surviving in Japan, and the prefecture's tourism service calls its eleven-bay front the longest of its kind. Nagare-zukuri, with a front roof slope that sweeps out over the steps, is the commonest shrine form in the country. What sets Kubo Hachiman apart is the joining of three complete sanctuaries into a single building.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs database places the hall in the late Muromachi period, gives the year 1519, and records its designation date as August 28, 1907. No other building at the shrine was listed earlier.

The Takeda warlords left their mark here as well. The shrine chronicle Ōimata Jinja Hongi records that in 1557, as Takeda Harunobu (the general better known as Takeda Shingen) set out on campaign into Shinano, he had his retainers restore the gold leaf on the sanctuary doors.

What to Look For at the Kubo Hachiman Main Hall

Read the front from one end to the other and the three sanctuaries separate themselves. Each group of door bays is the face of one sanctuary, and the single plain bay between groups is the link.

Six board panels beside the sanctuary fronts carry paintings, and gold leaf covers much of the facade. Konishi Decorative Arts and Crafts, the firm that surveyed and stabilized the panel paintings, sees Kano-school conventions in how the subjects are paired and judges that a Kano-trained painter worked on them before the early nineteenth century.

A wooden stair of nine steps leads up to the sanctuary, and an upswept railing of the hane-kōran type (Kōran) runs round the veranda. The small Takeuchi Daijin sanctuary just south of Kubo Hachiman's main hall repeats the same nine steps and railing, and seeing the two together makes the scale of the main hall obvious.

Visiting the Kubo Hachiman Main Hall

Kubo Hachiman Shrine Main Hall stands behind the worship hall on the raised rear terrace of the grounds, which is held up by a stone retaining wall. The interior is not open, and prayers are offered in front of the worship hall. Walk round the side of the worship hall for an angled view of the long roof and part of the front.

Directions to the shrine and general visiting information are gathered on the Kubo Hachiman Shrine page.