Exams & Study
Places associated with exams and study.
Study and examinations belong mostly to Tenjin, the deified scholar Sugawara no Michizane, and the shrines in this collection are largely his. Students have brought examinations to these places for centuries, and each page records how the institution itself describes that devotion.
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18 placesOpen in the full map
Places in this collection
ShrineKitano Tenmangu
- Exams & Study
- Protection & Safety
- Skill & Mastery
Head shrine of some twelve thousand Tenmangu shrines, widely venerated for success in entrance examinations and in study.
ShrineDazaifu Tenmangu
- Career & Work
- Exams & Study
- Fertility & Children
The shrine stands over Sugawara no Michizane’s grave, on the spot where the ox drawing his funeral cart lay down and would not move; prayers here begin with passing an entrance examination.
TempleJogyesa
- Exams & Study
The head temple of the Jogye Order, in the middle of downtown Seoul, where a prayer for children ends the day before the national entrance exam each year.
ShrineKameido Tenjin Shrine
- Exams & Study
A Koto shrine laid out in 1662 on the model of Dazaifu Tenmangu, head of Tenjin devotion in eastern Japan, and the best place in Tokyo to see wisteria.
ShrineYushima Tenmangu
- Exams & Study
A Bunkyo shrine enshrining Sugawara no Michizane, where Tokyo students come to pray before examinations, and whose plum garden opens each February.
ShrineNezu Shrine
- Career & Work
- Exams & Study
- Family & Home
A Bunkyo shrine whose entire 1706 complex survives intact as an Important Cultural Property, rare in Tokyo, with an azalea hill and a tunnel of small red torii (鳥居).
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.
TempleGatbawi
- Exams & Study
- Wish Fulfillment
A Unified Silla stone Buddha seated on the summit of Gwanbong on Palgongsan, and the busiest prayer site in the country in the weeks before the university entrance exam.
TempleChiljangsa, Chilhyeonsan
- Exams & Study
The mountain and the temple are both named for seven robbers who became seven sages.
TempleOka-dera
- Exams & Study
- Fertility & Children
- Health & Healing
Founded by the priest Gien on the vow of Emperor Tenji, it calls itself the first site in Japan for warding off misfortune and is the seventh station of the Saikoku pilgrimage.
TempleAbe Monju-in
- Exams & Study
- Fertility & Children
- Protection & Safety
Founded in 645 and one of the oldest temples in Japan, its principal image is the Monju of the proverb "three heads together make Monju’s wisdom", and prayers here begin with success in examinations.
ShrineOsaka Tenmangu
- Exams & Study
- Money & Prosperity
- Protection & Safety
Built by imperial order on the spot where Sugawara no Michizane prayed for a safe journey to Dazaifu, after seven pines grew there overnight and shone each night.
TempleKatsuo-ji
- Exams & Study
- Health & Healing
- Protection & Safety
Begun in 727 when twin brothers built a hermitage on the mountain, and a temple of winning that defines winning as overcoming your own weak heart.
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.
ShrineNishiki Tenmangu
- Exams & Study
A shrine to Sugawara no Michizane, known as the deity of learning, standing in the middle of an arcade facing the Nishiki food market.
ShrineTsuyu no Tenjinsha
- Exams & Study
- Health & Healing
- Love & Romance
An old shrine of thirteen centuries whose grove was the scene of the double suicide behind Chikamatsu’s play, and where people now come to ask for love to come true.
Historic SiteMungyeong Saejae
- Exams & Study
The highest and hardest pass on the road from the southeast to the capital, with three gates strung along six and a half kilometres.
ShrineDomyoji Tenmangu
- Exams & Study
It began when Nomi no Sukune, rewarded for inventing haniwa to replace the burial of the living, enshrined his distant ancestor here — and it now enshrines Sugawara no Michizane and his aunt.