A Hachimangu, or Hachiman shrine, is a Shinto shrine for Hachiman, the deified Emperor Ojin, enshrined at the great shrines with his mother Empress Jingu and the goddess Himegami. Usa Jingu in Oita is the head shrine, and it counts some 40,000 Hachiman shrines across Japan. This page explains who Hachiman is, how the shrines spread, and how to tell the famous ones apart: Usa, Iwashimizu, Hakozaki, Tsurugaoka in Kamakura and Tomioka in Tokyo.
If you searched for the Hachimangu in Kamakura, the shrine you want is probably Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, and our Tsurugaoka Hachimangu guide covers its hours, fees, yabusame dates and the walk from Kamakura Station. This page stays with the family of shrines it belongs to.
What you’ll learn
- What a Hachiman shrine is, and what Hachimangu, Hachiman-gu, Hachiman Jinja and Yawata mean on a sign
- Who Hachiman is, and how a Kyushu kami became a bodhisattva and the guardian of the samurai
- Why Usa Jingu is the head shrine, and why its worshippers clap four times
- Which shrines are called the three great Hachiman shrines, and where Kamakura and Tokyo fit
- What the hojo-e festival is, and why our classification puts Hachiman shrines in Fire
What a Hachiman Shrine Is
A Hachiman shrine is a Shinto shrine for Hachiman, the spirit of Emperor Ojin, joined at the great shrines by Empress Jingu and Himegami.
Kokugakuin University in Tokyo defines Hachiman in its Basic Terms of Shinto as the deified Emperor Ojin together with his mother and his wife, first enshrined at Usa in Oita Prefecture and later at Hachiman shrines throughout Japan. The family is large. Usa Jingu’s history page says that of about 110,000 shrines in Japan, Hachiman has the most, more than 40,600. Tsurugaoka Hachimangu’s English page gives “more than 40,000” as a figure it reports rather than counts.
Treat both as the shrines’ own figures. Neither page says what was counted, such as small shrines inside other shrines’ grounds, or in which year. We looked for a government or national count of Hachiman shrines and did not find one we could read in the original, so we give no other number.
| Name you may see | Written | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Hachimangu / Hachiman-gu / Hachimangū | 八幡宮 | The same name with or without a hyphen or long mark; -gu is a shrine ending |
| Hachiman shrine | 八幡宮・八幡神社 | The English term for any shrine of Hachiman |
| Hachiman Jinja | 八幡神社 | The same deity, with the common ending jinja (shrine) |
| Yawata | 八幡 | Another reading of the same two characters, as in Yawata City, home of Iwashimizu |
| Usa Jingu | 宇佐神宮 | The head shrine; its name does not contain Hachiman at all |
Hachimangu, Hachiman-gu, Hachiman Jinja: Reading the Name
Hachimangu, Hachiman-gu and Hachiman Jinja all name a shrine of the same deity; only the ending and the spelling change.
The ending -gu is written 宮, a character used in many shrine names, and Hachiman-gu is just Hachimangu with a hyphen. The characters 八幡 can also be read Yawata. Iwashimizu Hachimangu says it is known locally as “Yawata no Hachiman-san,” and the city around it is Yawata. So a sign reading Hachiman Jinja in a village and a great shrine reading Hachimangu in a city are, for a visitor, the same kind of place: a shrine where Hachiman is the main deity.
Who Hachiman Is: Emperor Ojin, Empress Jingu and Himegami
Hachiman is the spirit of Emperor Ojin, Japan’s fifteenth emperor, and the great Hachiman shrines enshrine him with his mother and a goddess, Himegami.
Yawata City’s English guide describes Hachiman as worshipped as one entity with Empress Jingu and Hime Okami. Who Himegami is varies by shrine, which is why the table below lists each shrine’s own wording rather than one answer.
| Shrine | Main deity | With | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Usa Jingu | Hachiman Okami (Emperor Ojin) | Hime Okami, Empress Jingu | Usa Jingu |
| Iwashimizu Hachimangu | Emperor Ojin (centre hall) | Himeokami as three goddesses, Tagiri-bime, Ichikishima-hime and Tagitsu-bime (west); Empress Jingu (east) | Iwashimizu |
| Hakozaki-gu | Emperor Ojin | Empress Jingu, Tamayori-hime | Hakozaki-gu |
| Tsurugaoka Hachimangu | Emperor Ojin | Empress Jingu, Himegami | Tsurugaoka |
| Tomioka Hachimangu | Emperor Ojin (Homuda-wake) | Eight further deities, not named on the page | Tomioka |
At Usa, Hime Okami is older than Hachiman. The shrine’s history says she was worshipped there as the guardian of the land before Hachiman appeared, and that the Nihon Shoki, an eighth-century chronicle, records her descent at Usa. Hakozaki-gu adds a local tie of its own: it says Emperor Ojin was born in what is now Umi, Fukuoka Prefecture. Empress Jingu also has a place in Sumiyoshi Taisha in Osaka, where she is enshrined with three sea gods.
A Kami Who Became a Great Bodhisattva
Hachiman was one of the kami most closely tied to Buddhism, and in 781 the court gave him the Buddhist title of Great Bodhisattva.
Kokugakuin’s Encyclopedia of Shinto traces the reasons. When the Great Buddha of Todaiji was being built in Nara, a priestess of Usa travelled to the capital with a message from Hachiman that he would help, which brought his cult to the centre of the country. A shrine temple, Mirokuji, was established at Usa in 725. After the court’s title of Daibosatsu in 781, Hachiman was depicted as a Buddhist monk, and Hachiman shrines were set up to guard temples such as Todaiji, Yakushiji and Toji. At Iwashimizu, monks ran the shrine, and Amida Buddha was named as Hachiman’s original form.
That long blend ended in the Meiji era. Iwashimizu says on its cultural property page that it lost many treasures in the separation of Shinto and Buddhism in the early Meiji years, and its history page notes that it was renamed Otokoyama Hachimangu in Meiji, taking back the name Iwashimizu in 1918.
Guardian of the Minamoto and the Samurai
Hachiman became the clan kami of the Minamoto, and through them the guardian of the samurai and of local estates across Japan.
The encyclopedia records that by the end of the eleventh century Hachiman and Ise were called the two ancestral shrines of the imperial house, nisho sobyo, and that the Minamoto, a warrior clan descended from Emperor Seiwa, took Hachiman as their clan kami. Minamoto no Yoshiie came of age at Iwashimizu and called himself Hachiman Taro. Iwashimizu adds that the Minamoto enshrined Hachiman all over the country. In the middle ages, the encyclopedia says, Hachiman shrines were founded on estates as local guardian kami. That is the simplest answer to why there are so many.
Usa Jingu: The Head Shrine of Every Hachiman Shrine
Usa Jingu in Usa, Oita Prefecture, is the head shrine of all Hachiman shrines, founded in 725 where Hachiman is said to have first appeared.
Its history page says Hachiman first appeared at Usa in 571, in the reign of Emperor Kinmei, and that in 725 halls were built on the present site by imperial wish, which the shrine counts as its founding. The imperial house honoured it as the second ancestral shrine after Ise, and it is one of sixteen chokusaisha, shrines to which the emperor sends an envoy. Its main hall is a National Treasure.
| Year | What the shrine records | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 571 | Hachiman first appears at Usa, by the shrine’s account | History |
| 725 | Halls built on the present site: the founding | History |
| 823 | Third hall built for Empress Jingu, by oracle | History |
| October 6, 2025 | The 258th imperial envoy festival, held once every ten years | Notice |
| 2025 | 1,300 years since Hachiman was enshrined, marked with offerings from across Japan | Report |
Usa asks for two things on its own page. Its etiquette page asks you to visit both the upper and lower shrines so as not to make a “one-sided visit,” and to pray at the first, second and third halls in order, left to right. And it bows twice, claps four times and bows once: the page calls four claps the old form at Usa. The shrine’s site gives opening hours of 5:30 to 19:00 from April to September.
The Three Great Hachiman Shrines
Hakozaki-gu names the three great Hachiman shrines as Usa Jingu, Iwashimizu Hachimangu and itself, and Iwashimizu also calls itself one of the three.
Hakozaki-gu’s history page says it is counted with Usa and Iwashimizu as one of Japan’s three great Hachiman shrines. Iwashimizu’s page calls itself one of the three without listing the others. If you have seen Tsurugaoka in Kamakura on such a list, note that we found no statement from Tsurugaoka itself or from a shrine body that counts it among the three, so we do not. Tsurugaoka’s standing comes from somewhere else: the shogunate. The table compares the five shrines on this page.
| Shrine | Where | Year by the shrine | Known for | Main festival |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Usa Jingu | Usa, Oita | 725 | Head shrine; four claps | Chushusai in October, with a release of shellfish |
| Iwashimizu Hachimangu | Yawata, Kyoto | 859 | National Treasure halls; warding off bad luck | Iwashimizu-sai, September 15 |
| Hakozaki-gu | Higashi Ward, Fukuoka | 921 and 923 | Victory; the Mongol invasions | Hojoya, September 12–18 |
| Tsurugaoka Hachimangu | Kamakura, Kanagawa | 1063, present site 1180 | Shrine of the Kamakura shogunate | See our Tsurugaoka guide |
| Tomioka Hachimangu | Koto Ward, Tokyo | 1627 | “Edo’s largest Hachiman”; sumo | Fukagawa Hachiman Matsuri, around August 15 |
Iwashimizu Hachimangu Shrine in Kyoto
Iwashimizu Hachimangu stands on Mount Otokoyama in Yawata, south of Kyoto, where the monk Gyokyo brought Hachiman from Usa in 859.
The shrine’s history says Gyokyo, a monk of Daianji in Nara, prayed at Usa and received the oracle “I will move to the peak of Otokoyama near the capital and guard the nation.” Yawata City adds that the court-ordered halls were finished in 860, which is why some sources give that year. Emperors and retired emperors visited more than 240 times. On February 9, 2016, ten buildings of the main shrine were designated National Treasures; the shrine says the present halls were rebuilt under the third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu, and are the oldest and largest surviving main hall in the hachiman-zukuri style, the building type named after Hachiman shrines.
To get there, take the Keihan line to Iwashimizu-hachimangu Station, ride the cable car from Hachimangu-guchi to Hachimangu-sanjo, and walk five minutes, says the access page; from Kyoto Station, change at Tambabashi on the Kintetsu line or at Tofukuji on JR. One story the shrine tells: bamboo from around Otokoyama, sent to Thomas Edison, proved the longest-lasting filament in his light-bulb experiments, according to its page of shrine stories. For more of the city, see our shrines in Kyoto.
Hakozaki-gu in Fukuoka
Hakozaki-gu, also called Hakozaki Hachimangu, stands in Higashi Ward, Fukuoka, and is known for luck in victory since the Mongol invasions.
Its founding has two dates, and the shrine itself says the exact year is hard to fix. By its Japanese history, Emperor Daigo granted the words tekikoku kofuku, “may the enemy nation yield,” in his own hand in 921, and the deity was moved from Daibu-gu in 923. The English site gives 923 in one place and 921 in another, so we give both. When the Mongol fleets came in the thirteenth century, the shrine says, the “divine wind” carried the day, and warlords from Ashikaga Takauji to Toyotomi Hideyoshi visited. Take the subway to Hakozakimiyamae; the access page puts it at about 20 minutes from Hakata Station, not counting walking.
Hachiman Shrines in Kamakura and Tokyo
In Kamakura the Hachiman shrine is Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, and in Tokyo, Tomioka Hachimangu in Fukagawa calls itself Edo’s largest.
Tsurugaoka Hachimangu: The Hachimangu in Kamakura
Tsurugaoka Hachimangu is a branch of Iwashimizu that the Minamoto brought to Kamakura and that Yoritomo made the heart of his shogunate.
The shrine’s English history says Minamoto no Yoriyoshi, a devoted follower of Iwashimizu, divided its kami and enshrined it at Yuigahama beach; in 1180 his descendant Yoritomo moved it to its present site and it became the guardian of the shogunate, Kamakura and eastern Japan. Its three deities are the usual three: Ojin, Jingu and Himegami. That is all we cover here. Our full guide to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu follows it from the beach in 1063 to the hillside in 1191, separates the ginkgo legend from the record, and lists hours, fees, festival dates and the walk from Kamakura Station.
Tomioka Hachimangu: Edo’s Largest Hachiman
Tomioka Hachimangu, founded in 1627, calls itself the largest Hachiman shrine of Edo and is three minutes on foot from Monzen-nakacho Station.
Its history page says it was founded by oracle on Eitai-jima, with the sandbanks around it reclaimed, and protected by the Tokugawa shoguns, who revered Hachiman as the Minamoto clan kami. Its monthly festivals on the 1st, 15th and 28th, the shrine says, still draw crowds as fair days. Its festival page describes the Fukagawa Hachiman Matsuri around August 15, one of the three great festivals of Edo; in the main year, once every three years, 53 neighbourhood mikoshi, portable shrines, process together while spectators throw water over the bearers.
Sumo fans have a reason to come too. The shrine’s sumo page says the shogunate allowed charity sumo tournaments in its grounds in 1684, and that the Yokozuna Monument, raised in 1900, carries the names of the grand champions. The access page gives three minutes on foot from Monzen-nakacho on the Tokyo Metro Tozai line and six on the Toei Oedo line. Our guide to shrines in Tokyo lists others nearby.
Hojo-e: The Festival Every Great Hachiman Shrine Keeps
The hojo-e is a rite of releasing living creatures, and all three great Hachiman shrines still hold one.
Kokugakuin’s encyclopedia says the hojo-e comes from a Buddhist ritual of releasing animals based on the precept against killing, and cites an account that Usa Hachiman was established to atone for the killing of Hayato people in the uprising of 720. Each shrine’s version keeps that thread, as the table shows.
| Shrine | Festival and date | What the shrine says | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Usa Jingu | Chushusai, October | The first hall’s mikoshi goes to Wama Shrine, and snails and shellfish are released at Wama beach to console the spirits of the Hayato | Festival list |
| Iwashimizu Hachimangu | Iwashimizu-sai, September 15 | Began in 863 as the Iwashimizu hojo-e, releasing fish and birds by the river at the foot of Otokoyama | Festivals; Yawata City |
| Hakozaki-gu | Hojoya, September 12–18 | Started by an oracle that much killing in war should be answered with a hojo-e; one of the three great festivals of Hakata | Hojoya |
For a visitor, the September dates are the easiest to catch. Hakozaki-gu says hundreds of stalls line its approach over the seven days, and that the procession, a Fukuoka City intangible folk cultural property, runs every other year. Our goshuin guide explains what to ask for at the counter.
Five Elements Classification: Why Hachiman Shrines Come Out Fire
A typical Hachiman shrine scores Fire 90 in our classification, because Emperor Ojin, Empress Jingu and the Hachiman name all fall into Fire.
Kannavi sorts shrines into one of five elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Wind and Void. This is our classification, not a teaching of any shrine and not a fortune. It reads three checkable layers: the deities, 60 for the principal and 15 for each further match; the geography, up to 25; and the lineage in the name, 15. We enter only what the shrine’s own pages state, so a shrine with no stated setting gets no geography points.
| Shrine | What was entered | What matched | Points | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Hachiman shrine (generic) | Ojin, Jingu, Himegami; name Hachimangu | Ojin 60 and Jingu 15 as people who made their name in war; Hachiman lineage 15 | Fire 90 | Fire |
| Usa Jingu | Hachiman Okami, Hime Okami, Jingu | Hachiman 60, Jingu 15; no Hachiman in the name | Fire 75 | Fire |
| Iwashimizu Hachimangu | Ojin, Himeokami, Jingu; peak of Otokoyama | Ojin 60, Jingu 15, lineage 15; mountain 25 | Fire 90, Earth 25 | Fire |
| Hakozaki-gu | Ojin, Jingu, Tamayori-hime | Ojin 60, Jingu 15; Tamayori-hime 15 as a deity of the sea and of voyages | Fire 75, Water 15 | Fire |
| Tomioka Hachimangu | Ojin; name Hachimangu | Ojin 60, lineage 15 (the other eight deities are not named) | Fire 75 | Fire |
| Tsurugaoka Hachimangu | Ojin, Jingu, Himegami; Main Shrine on the hillside of Mount Daijin, per the shrine’s English history | Ojin 60, Jingu 15, lineage 15; mountain 25 | Fire 90, Earth 25 | Fire |
Himegami scores nothing anywhere, because her identity differs from shrine to shrine and our list does not file her under a category. A second element is named only when the runner-up reaches 80 percent of the leader, so none of these shrines gets one: Hakozaki’s Water 15 is far below the 60 it would need.
Relations run around a ring, Earth to Fire to Void to Water to Wind and back, in which each shifts the flow of the next rather than opposing it. For comparison inside this guide, Nikko Toshogu also scores Fire 90, Ise’s Naiku, the other of the two ancestral shrines, is Fire at 75, and Kasuga Taisha, Wind at 90, is one of the two that shift Fire’s flow.
Frequently Asked Questions
A Hachiman shrine is Shinto today, its seal costs ¥500 at Iwashimizu, and of the five shrines here only Usa asks for four claps.
Q. Is a Hachiman shrine Shinto or Buddhist?
A. Today it is a Shinto shrine, but until the early Meiji years Hachiman was one of the kami most closely tied to Buddhism. The court called him Great Bodhisattva in 781, he was depicted as a monk, and Iwashimizu was run by Buddhist monks. The government separated the two in the early Meiji years, and Iwashimizu says it lost many treasures then. Visit as you would any shrine.
Q. Where is the Hachiman Shrine in Assassin’s Creed Shadows?
A. Players asking this mean Iwashimizu: game guides list a location called Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine. The real shrine is on Mount Otokoyama in Yawata, Kyoto Prefecture, reached by the Keihan line to Iwashimizu-hachimangu Station and a short cable car. Its halls were designated National Treasures in 2016, and its main festival, Iwashimizu-sai, falls on September 15.
Q. Is Hachimangu the same as Tsurugaoka Hachimangu?
A. Not exactly. Hachimangu is the type of shrine, and there are tens of thousands. But in Kamakura people use it for Tsurugaoka: the shrine’s own site is hachimangu.or.jp, and when we searched “hachimangu” on Google in the US on November 4, 2026, six of the top ten results were Tsurugaoka pages. For visiting it, use our Tsurugaoka guide.
Q. Do you clap four times at every Hachiman shrine?
A. No. Usa Jingu’s etiquette page says two bows, four claps and one bow is the old form at Usa. The pages we read from Iwashimizu, Hakozaki, Tsurugaoka and Tomioka give no special count, so elsewhere follow the common pattern of two bows, two claps and one bow unless a sign at the hall says otherwise. Bow before and after, whatever the count.
Q. Can I get a goshuin at a Hachiman shrine?
A. At the large ones, yes. Iwashimizu’s goshuin page gives ¥500 for the main shrine’s seal, written at the amulet counter to the right of the main shrine on the hilltop, after you visit. It also offers seals of three subsidiary shrines, handed over pre-written. Our goshuin guide explains how to ask at any counter.
Q. What do people pray for at a Hachiman shrine?
A. Mostly protection, luck in winning and escape from bad luck. Iwashimizu names national protection, warding off misfortune, and victory and archery, and holds a New Year festival for people in unlucky years. Hakozaki-gu lists warding off misfortune and luck in victory. Usa’s supporters’ page calls Hachiman a kami of national protection and of turning away misfortune. Usa’s prayer list also includes exams and business.
Summary
A Hachiman shrine enshrines Emperor Ojin as Hachiman, at the great shrines with Empress Jingu and Himegami, and Usa Jingu is the head of the family.
- Hachimangu, Hachiman-gu, Hachiman shrine and Hachiman Jinja all mean a shrine of Hachiman; Yawata is another reading.
- Usa Jingu says Hachiman has more than 40,600 shrines; Tsurugaoka says more than 40,000. Neither says how they counted.
- Usa was founded in 725, keeps four claps as its old form, and held its once-a-decade imperial envoy festival on October 6, 2025.
- Hakozaki-gu names the three great Hachiman shrines as Usa, Iwashimizu and Hakozaki.
- In Kamakura, Hachimangu means Tsurugaoka; in Tokyo, Tomioka in Fukagawa, founded in 1627.
- All three great shrines keep a hojo-e, a rite of releasing living creatures.
- In the Kannavi classification, a typical Hachiman shrine is Fire 90, with no second element.
Next: visit the Kamakura shrine with our Tsurugaoka Hachimangu guide, see Iwashimizu among the shrines in Kyoto, compare another large family at Inari shrines, learn what to ask for in the goshuin guide, or browse the full list of Japanese shrines.
The Hachiman shrine at the corner of a Japanese town may have no name you know, but it is a branch of a story that, by Usa’s account, began in Kyushu more than fourteen centuries ago, crossed into Buddhism and back, and followed the samurai wherever they held land. Bow there as you would at Usa.