Homangu Kamado Shrine

Quick facts

Address

883 Uchiyama, Dazaifu, Fukuoka

About this place

Homangu Kamado Shrine is in Dazaifu, Fukuoka. It is revered as a deity of the tying of bonds, of warding off ill directions and of warding off misfortune. Of its chief deity Tamayorihime, the shrine explains a virtue read out of the name itself — the drawing together and joining (yori) of soul to soul (tama) — and says that the bonds tied here are not only good matches between women and men but good bonds with family, with friends, with work and with nature. In the reign of Emperor Tenji the Dazaifu government office was established, and ritual began on Mount Kamado, that is Mount Homan, which stands at its demon gate. In 673 the founder Shinren experienced the appearance of the spirit of Tamayorihime, reported it to the court, and the upper shrine was built. From the Nara period into the early Heian, numerous excavated objects confirm that state ritual was performed here. Saicho, Kukai and others crossing to the continent climbed here and offered prayers for safety at sea and for the achieving of their aims. In 1106 the shrine was granted the senior first rank, and in 1895 it was ranked as a minor imperial shrine.

Origin and history

In the reign of Emperor Tenji the Dazaifu government office was established, and ritual began on Mount Kamado, that is Mount Homan, which stands at its demon gate.

In 673 the founder Shinren experienced the appearance of the spirit of Tamayorihime, reported it to the court, and the upper shrine was built. From the Nara period into the early Heian, numerous excavated objects confirm that state ritual was performed here.

Saicho, Kukai and others crossing to the continent climbed here and offered prayers for safety at sea and for the achieving of their aims. In 1106 the shrine was granted the senior first rank, and in 1895 it was ranked as a minor imperial shrine.

What it is locally associated with

• Power spotLove & RomanceProtection & Safety

  The name is the argument

  Of Tamayorihime the shrine explains the drawing together and joining of soul to soul, and says the bonds tied here extend to family, friends, work and nature.

  documented history

• Origin

  At the demon gate of the Dazaifu office

  In the reign of Emperor Tenji the Dazaifu government office was established, and ritual began on the mountain standing at its demon gate.

  documented history

• What people do here

  A mountain climbed before crossing

  Saicho, Kukai and others crossing to the continent climbed here and prayed for safety at sea and for the achieving of their aims.

  documented history

This shrine takes its deity’s name apart to explain what the deity does. Tamayorihime — the drawing together and joining, yori, of soul to soul, tama. The characters of the name are themselves offered as the grounds for the tying of bonds.

And those bonds are not limited to lovers. Good bonds with family, with friends, with work and with nature, the shrine goes on. The tag on this page therefore answers to one face of what is meant; the shrine’s own scope is wider.

Tamayorihime is enshrined at Hakozakigu as well, twenty kilometres away in the same prefecture. There she is given as a deity of the sea and the mother of Emperor Jimmu — the same goddess described from a different side in two Fukuoka pages.

The reason ritual began here was a compass bearing. The Dazaifu government office was established, and rites began on the mountain standing at its demon gate. A mountain was chosen as a guard for the capital because of the direction it lay in, and the warding off of ill directions on the shrine’s list of benefits follows from that.

This was also a mountain people climbed before crossing. Saicho, Kukai and others bound for the continent climbed here and prayed for safety at sea and for their aims to be achieved.

Related guides

• How to visit a shrine or temple in JapanThe country-wide basics: purifying at the water basin, the two-bows-two-claps-one-bow form at shrines, and what temples do instead.
• What a "power spot" actually isA modern Japanese coinage, not a traditional religious category. Where the word came from, what it does and does not claim, and why this site uses it anyway.
• Shrine or temple?A shrine is Shinto and a temple is Buddhist, and you can usually tell at the gate. Why the line is cleaner on paper than on the ground, and what a government order in 1868 has to do with it.
• Omamori, ema, omikuji and goshuinThe four things you are most likely to receive, write, draw or be given at a shrine or temple, what each is actually for, and the one of them people most often get wrong.

Sources

1. 歴史 — Homangu Kamado Shrine (accessed 2026-08-15)
2. 宝満宮竈門神社 — Homangu Kamado Shrine (accessed 2026-08-15)