TEMPLES ET SANCTUAIRES

Kirishima Jingū Shrine: Where the Gods Came Down to Earth in the Volcanic Mountains of Kagoshima

Construction

Founded in the 6th century; rebuilt several times after volcanic eruptions; present buildings raised in 1715 by Shimazu Yoshitaka; honden, heiden and haiden designated National Treasures in 2022

Divinité

Ninigi-no-Mikoto, grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu — with Konohanasakuya-hime, Hoori, Toyotama-hime, Ugayafukiaezu, Tamayori-hime and Emperor Jimmu

Religion

Shinto shrine; one of southern Kyushu's great shrines; the whole Kirishima mountain range is held to be sacred ground

Location

2608-5 Kirishima-Taguchi, Kirishima City, Kagoshima Prefecture 899-4201, Kyushu, Japan — at the foot of Mount Takachiho, in Kirishima-Kinkowan National Park

A Vermilion Shrine at the Foot of the Sacred Peak — and the Beginning of Japan's Imperial Story

High in the volcanic mountains of southern Kyushu, where steam rises from the earth and cedar forests climb the slopes, stands a shrine painted the colour of fire. Kirishima Jingū — Kirishima Grand Shrine — is one of the most sacred places in Japan, and one of the least known outside it. According to the Kojiki, Japan’s oldest chronicle, it was here, on the peak of Mount Takachiho behind the shrine, that the god Ninigi-no-Mikoto descended from heaven to rule the earth — the moment the imperial line began. The shrine has burned, moved and been rebuilt across fourteen centuries, and its vermilion halls still face the mountain where the gods came down.

The Descent of the Heavenly Grandson

The story of Kirishima begins before history, in the age of the gods. The sun goddess Amaterasu sent her grandson Ninigi-no-Mikoto down from the High Plain of Heaven to bring order to the earthly realm. He landed on the summit of Mount Takachiho (1,574 m), carrying the three sacred treasures — mirror, sword and jewel — and from him descends the imperial family of Japan. The event is called Tenson Kōrin, the Descent of the Heavenly Grandson, and for the Japanese it is the beginning of the nation itself. Kirishima Jingū enshrines Ninigi as its principal deity, but he is not alone. Beside him are his wife Konohanasakuya-hime, goddess of Mount Fuji and of blossoms; their son Hoori, the hunter-god; his wife Toyotama-hime, the sea princess; and their descendants down to Kamu-yamato-iware-hiko — the man history remembers as Emperor Jimmu, the legendary first emperor. To walk the shrine grounds is to walk through the genealogy of Japan’s founding myth, from the gods to the first throne. The whole mountain range is held to be sacred ground. The shrine’s most revered site is not a building at all, but Takachiho-gawara, the high meadow where the descent is said to have happened — a place of pilgrimage still today.

A Shrine Rebuilt by Fire — and by the Shimazu

Shrine tradition dates Kirishima Jingū to the sixth century, but the volcanoes have never let it rest. Its first buildings stood between Mount Takachiho and Mount Ohachi, in the heart of the active range, and eruption after eruption destroyed them. Around 950, the Tendai monk Shōku moved the shrine to Takachiho-gawara, the meadow of the descent; later it moved again, each time a little further from the fire. The buildings you see today were raised in 1715, paid for by Shimazu Yoshitaka, the fourth lord of the Satsuma domain and twenty-first head of the Shimazu family. Their vermilion lacquer, gold leaf and intricate carvings are so rich that people call Kirishima Jingū the “Nikko of the West”, after the great shrines of Tochigi. For three centuries they were Important Cultural Properties; on 9 February 2022, the main hall, offering hall and worship hall were raised to the highest honour in Japan — National Treasures, the first architectural National Treasure in Kagoshima Prefecture. The shrine faces Mount Takachiho across the valley, so that the god’s mountain is always in view. On a clear morning the peak rises above the mist that gives Kirishima — “the island in the fog” — its name. The Cedar, the Stone and the Drums Look for the shrine’s living treasure first: the goshinboku, a sacred cedar beside the main hall, some 800 years old and about 35 metres tall, its trunk 7.2 metres around. It is said to be the ancestor of all the cedars of southern Kyushu, and visitors press their hands to its bark for a share of its strength. Nearby lies the sazare-ishi, a rock of fused pebbles named in the Japanese national anthem, “Kimigayo”. Kirishima Jingū is also a shrine of sound. Its treasured nine-faced taiko drums — the Kirishima Kyūmen Taiko — thunder across the grounds on 1 January, 11 February, the anniversary of the heavenly descent, and 10 November. Come in late March for some 200 cherry trees in bloom, in June for the crimson Miyama Kirishima azaleas, or in autumn, when the maples burn as red as the halls. And if the place feels like a honeymoon, there is a reason: in 1866 the samurai Sakamoto Ryōma brought his new wife Oryō here — said to be Japan’s first honeymoon. Before you leave, take an omamori from the shrine office: a small piece of the mountain where the gods came down, to carry a little of that beginning with you.