Main Hall of Yamamiya Shrine, Asama Shrine

The Shrine That Came First

The Main Hall of Yamamiya Shrine (浅間神社摂社山宮神社本殿, Asama-jinja Sessha Yamamiya-jinja Honden), an auxiliary shrine of Asama Shrine in Ichinomiya-cho, Fuefuki City, Yamanashi Prefecture, was rebuilt in 1558 and designated an Important Cultural Property on 28 August 1907.

Asama Shrine is the ichinomiya, the first-ranked shrine, of the old province of Kai. Roughly two kilometres to the southeast, at the foot of a hill called Kamiyama and beside the headwaters of the Yamamiya River, stands a small sanctuary that the shrine's own records treat as the older site. Shrine tradition places the founding there, and holds that in the twelfth month of 865 one of the three enshrined deities, Konohanasakuya-hime, was moved down to the present main precinct. Two remain at the mountain site: Ōyamatsumi-no-kami and Ninigi-no-mikoto.

The move has a documented context. In 864 Mount Fuji erupted in what is known as the Jōgan eruption, one of the most destructive in its recorded history. The Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku, an official chronicle compiled in 901, records that a shrine to the Asama deity was established in Kai Province the following year and given official status, with priests appointed to conduct rites. A sanctuary at the foot of a hill, reachable only on foot, was not a practical centre for state-sponsored ritual. The lower site was.

What survives at the mountain site today is a building from the age of the Takeda. The current main hall was rebuilt in 1558 by Takeda Shingen, whose armies were then contesting Shinano and the northern approaches. Four munafuda, wooden ridge tablets recording construction and repair work, are designated alongside the building itself.

Why It Was Designated in 1907

The designation date is early. The building was recognised in August 1907, under the Ancient Shrines and Temples Preservation Law of 1897, which was the first national framework for architectural protection in Japan. When the current Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties took effect in 1950, holdings recognised under the older statute were carried across into the Important Cultural Property category, which is where this building sits today.

Two things account for the early recognition. One is the reliable date. A shrine hall with matching ridge tablets giving 1558 is a fixed point, and fixed points are what a survey of Muromachi architecture is built from. The other is scale. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records the structure as two bays along the ridge and one bay deep, roofed with cypress bark in sumiki-iri kasuga-zukuri.

That formula deserves unpacking. Kasuga-zukuri is a sanctuary type named for Kasuga Taisha in Nara: a gabled roof with the entrance on the gable end and a projecting canopy over the steps. It is almost always built one bay wide, small enough that a single structure can be carried in procession. Sumiki-iri denotes a version with a hip rafter inserted at the corner, a variant well represented in Yamanashi. A two-bay example is unusual for the type. Some published accounts describe this hall as a single-bay building; the Agency for Cultural Affairs record is the primary authority and gives two bays.

Local accounts consistently praise the kigumi, the proportioning of the timbers, as generous and substantial, and note that the building preserves comparatively archaic features. In a period when shrine architecture was drifting toward denser ornament, this hall holds a plainer line.

Reading the Carvings

Go and look at the kaerumata, the frog-leg struts set above the beams. They are the reason to make the walk.

On the front of the building the struts carry a complex floral design, worked as pattern rather than as a study of any particular plant. On the sides, the carving changes. Each of the side struts shows the same motif: a warrior's helmet, paired with maple leaves.

A helmet is not a standard element in the vocabulary of shrine ornament. Its presence here is generally read as a mark of the patron, a warlord who rebuilt a provincial sanctuary in 1558 with his own profession carved into the structure. Set against maple leaves, an autumn motif, the combination is a piece of design thinking rather than a simple badge.

Two enormous cedars stand beside the hall, known as the meoto-sugi or married cedars and designated by Fuefuki City. The shrine's own description calls them ancient beyond reckoning, growing as a pair. They frame the building in a way no later planting could reproduce.

Visiting the Mountain Shrine

This is a quiet site, not a staffed one. The Yamamiya sanctuary sits on a detached parcel of shrine land at 1705 Ichinomiya-cho Ichinomiya, about two kilometres southeast of the main precinct at 1684, where the shrine office is located. There is no admission charge and no ticket gate. Visitors are viewing the exterior of the hall; the interior is not open.

The site is not abandoned. Rites are held on the fifteenth of every month, and on the Sunday preceding 15 March the Yamamiya Shinkōsai takes the deity in procession from the lower shrine back up to the mountain site. The monthly observance is suspended in March and April, when the shrine's larger festivals occupy the calendar. Turning up on a rite day means seeing the building in use rather than as a monument, which is a different experience and worth planning for.

Most visitors reach Asama Shrine first, which stands close to National Route 20 in Ichinomiya-cho, with a large torii on the road and a parking area on site. From there the Yamamiya site lies southeast toward the hills, and it is straightforward to combine the two in one outing by car. Public transport in this part of the Kōfu Basin is thin, and the walk between the two is a fair distance on ordinary roads, so a car or taxi is the practical choice.

No general photography ban applies to the exterior, and the carved struts are the natural subject; a low sun raking across the side elevation brings out the helmets better than flat midday light. On procession days, keep clear of the ritual and follow the instructions of shrine staff. Before making a special trip, a call to the shrine office on 0553-47-0900 will confirm the current arrangements, since access to a detached mountain site can be affected by weather and by road conditions.

While at the main precinct, the meoto-ume, a plum tree said to be over two hundred years old whose paired blossoms set a single fruit, stands beside the main hall and has its own observance in the sixth month by the old calendar.