Momiji Hachimangu

Quick facts

Address

1-26-55 Takatori, Sawara-ku, Fukuoka

Spiritual entities

Empress Jingu (神功皇后) · Hachiman (八幡神)

About this place

Momiji Hachimangu is in Sawara-ku, Fukuoka. Its deities are Empress Jingu, consort of the fourteenth sovereign Emperor Chuai and mother of Emperor Ojin; Emperor Ojin, the fifteenth sovereign, who took in the culture and industry of the continent and ruled well; and Prince Uji no Wakiiratsuko, Emperor Ojin’s son, revered as the founder of letters and education — twelve deities in all. Empress Jingu is guardian of women, of safe birth and of the raising of children; Emperor Ojin is deity of warding off misfortune and of opening fortune and advancement; Prince Uji no Wakiiratsuko is guardian of learning and of children. The benefits most deeply revered here are safe birth, the keeping of children, the warding off of misfortune and calamity, the tying of bonds, and the opening of fortune and advancement, with success in study, prosperity in business and freedom from illness among others.

Origin and history

Its deities are Empress Jingu, consort of Emperor Chuai and mother of Emperor Ojin; Emperor Ojin, who took in the culture and industry of the continent and ruled well; and Prince Uji no Wakiiratsuko, his son, revered as the founder of letters and education — twelve deities in all.

Empress Jingu is guardian of women, of safe birth and of the raising of children; Emperor Ojin is deity of warding off misfortune and of opening fortune and advancement; Prince Uji no Wakiiratsuko is guardian of learning and of children.

The benefits most deeply revered are safe birth, the keeping of children, warding off misfortune and calamity, the tying of bonds, and the opening of fortune and advancement.

What it is locally associated with

• Power spotFertility & ChildrenProtection & SafetyLove & RomanceCareer & Work

  Safe birth and the keeping of children

  The benefits most deeply revered are safe birth, the keeping of children, warding off misfortune and calamity, the tying of bonds, and advancement.

  documented history

• Origin

  The founder of letters and education

  Prince Uji no Wakiiratsuko, Emperor Ojin’s son, is revered as the founder of letters and education and guardian of learning and of children.

  documented history

• What people do here

  Twelve deities, roles written out

  Twelve deities are enshrined, Empress Jingu for women and safe birth and Emperor Ojin for warding off misfortune and advancement.

  documented history

There is a deity of learning here who is not Michizane. Prince Uji no Wakiiratsuko, Emperor Ojin’s son, is revered as the founder of letters and education, as the shrine puts it. Almost everywhere else on this list, learning runs through Tenjin — that is, through Michizane — and some ten places look to the same man, Dazaifu Tenmangu foremost. Twenty kilometres away, in the same prefecture, a separate line for the same subject is enshrined.

Twelve deities are enshrined, and the shrine writes out a role for each of the principal three: Empress Jingu for women, safe birth and child-rearing; Emperor Ojin for warding off misfortune and for advancement; Prince Uji no Wakiiratsuko for learning and for children. Dividing up who to ask for what is the same practice as at Kashiigu, also in Fukuoka.

Among the benefits, the ones marked as most deeply revered are safe birth, the keeping of children, warding off misfortune and calamity, the tying of bonds, and advancement. Two of them concern children, and being born and being raised are counted separately.

The shrine’s own page gives neither a founding year nor an account of its Edo-period relocation, so this page gives neither.

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. 紅葉八幡宮について — Momiji Hachimangu (accessed 2026-08-15)