Empress Jingu (神功皇后)
Legendary consort of Emperor Chuai and mother of Emperor Ojin, enshrined with him at Hachiman shrines.
Empress Jingu is the consort of Emperor Chuai and the mother of Emperor Ojin, and the chronicles describe her as ruling as regent after her husband's death. She is enshrined at Hachiman shrines alongside Ojin, and where all three are present the shrines tend to speak of them as a family, which is why several of them attach devotions about childbirth and raising children to the group rather than to any one deity. The chronicles also give her a campaign overseas; that account is legendary material whose historicity is disputed among historians, and it is not treated as history on this site.
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Places in this collection
ShrineSumiyoshi Taisha
- Protection & Safety
- Purification
Head shrine of Japan’s twenty-three hundred Sumiyoshi shrines, guardian of voyages since the envoys to Sui and Tang, and ancestral deity of purification.
ShrineIwashimizu Hachimangu
- Protection & Safety
Founded in 859 on an oracle in which the deity said: I shall move to the peak of Otokoyama near the capital and protect the realm.
ShrineHakozakigu
- Exams & Study
- Fertility & Children
- Money & Prosperity
A Hachiman shrine built in 921 after Emperor Daigo, by divine instruction, handed down a piece of imperial calligraphy that the shrine still keeps as its first treasure.
ShrineAna Hachimangu
- Fertility & Children
- Money & Prosperity
- Skill & Mastery
A Waseda shrine named for a cave found in its hillside in 1641, which gives out an amulet for the circulation of money for six weeks each winter and nothing the rest of the year.
ShrineKashiigu
- Family & Home
- Fertility & Children
- Protection & Safety
It began when Empress Jingu built a shrine with her own hands for the spirit of her husband Emperor Chuai, and a second hall for the empress herself was later added on her own oracle.
ShrineSumiyoshi Shrine
- Protection & Safety
- Purification
Said to be the first of the 2,129 Sumiyoshi shrines in the country, and revered as a deity who guards against every calamity by means of purity of body and mind.
ShrineMiyajidake Shrine
- Wish Fulfillment
Empress Jingu is said to have prayed from this mountaintop before sailing — “grant me, I pray, an opening of fortune” — and the deity here is revered as one who grants any wish at all.
ShrineUmi Hachimangu
- Family & Home
- Fertility & Children
Empress Jingu gave birth to Emperor Ojin here, holding on to the branch of a pagoda tree, and the town’s name comes from that delivery.
ShrineHatonomori Hachiman Shrine
- Skill & Mastery
A Sendagaya shrine named after a flight of white doves, holding a Fuji mound raised in 1789 and a small hexagonal hall built with the Japan Shogi Association.
ShrineArahito Shrine
- Career & Work
- Money & Prosperity
A shrine that calls itself the root and the oldest of the two thousand-odd shrines to the three Sumiyoshi deities, revered as the deity of fortune in work.
ShrineFurougu
- Protection & Safety
A white heron appeared beside Empress Jingu’s ship and flew off, and where it came down became the sacred ground of this shrine of victory and of protection at sea.
ShrineFuuji Hachimangu
- Money & Prosperity
- Protection & Safety
From Ita no Okami to Kaze no Miya to Ita Tenaga Taisha and at last Fuuji Hachimangu — a name two lords each added a character to.
ShrineMomiji Hachimangu
- Career & Work
- Fertility & Children
- Love & Romance
Twelve deities are enshrined here, among them Empress Jingu, Emperor Ojin and Prince Uji no Wakiiratsuko, and the devotion runs to safe birth, the keeping of children, warding off misfortune, bonds and advancement.
ShrineNouso Hachimangu
- Exams & Study
- Family & Home
- Money & Prosperity
It began when Empress Jingu, on her way back from the campaign in the three Han, chose the grove of Nouso as sacred ground; the word people spoke at the parting gave the town of Iizuka its name.
ShrineOmiya Hachimangu
- Fertility & Children
- Protection & Safety
- Bonds & Matchmaking
A large wooded shrine in Suginami, founded in 1063 by Minamoto no Yoriyoshi after he read a bank of white cloud as the banners of his own clan, and known for child-rearing and warding.
ShrineShinozaki Hachiman Shrine
- Career & Work
- Fertility & Children
- Love & Romance
It begins with Empress Jingu giving birth to Emperor Ojin at Umi, and a division of the deity was brought from Usa Hachimangu in 730; two stones in the precinct carry different prayers.
ShrineIkasuri Jinja
- Family & Home
- Fertility & Children
- Money & Prosperity
Because it is the deity of this ground, the shrine records, it governs safe childbirth, children’s safe growth and safety in trade.
ShrineMozu Hachimangu
- Protection & Safety
Founded after an utterance of Hachiman named this ground Mozu in the reign of Emperor Kinmei, with a vow to keep the realm at peace and guard all the people.