Mozu Hachimangu

Quick facts

Address

5-706 Mozuakahatacho, Kita-ku, Sakai, Osaka

Spiritual entities

Empress Jingu (神功皇后) · Hachiman (八幡神)

About this place

Mozu Hachimangu is in Kita-ku, Sakai, Osaka. Its principal deity is Emperor Ojin, with Empress Jingu, the Sumiyoshi deity and the Kasuga deity enshrined alongside; the Wakamiya hall enshrines Emperor Nintoku. When Empress Jingu returned to Naniwa having finished the Sankan campaign, she is said to have set her heart on this ground at Mozu; later, in the reign of Emperor Kinmei, an utterance of the great deity Hachiman was received, this ground was called Mozu, and the shrine was founded. The vow made at that time was to keep the realm at peace and guard all the people. West of the main hall, the Gobyoyama tumulus is transmitted as the first burial tomb of Emperor Ojin and has been revered as this shrine’s inner sanctuary.

Origin and history

The principal deity is Emperor Ojin, with Empress Jingu, the Sumiyoshi deity and the Kasuga deity enshrined alongside. The Wakamiya hall enshrines Emperor Nintoku.

When Empress Jingu returned to Naniwa having finished the Sankan campaign, she set her heart on this ground at Mozu. Later, in the reign of Emperor Kinmei, an utterance of the great deity Hachiman was received, this ground was called Mozu, and the shrine was founded. The vow made at that time was to keep the realm at peace and guard all the people.

West of the main hall, the Gobyoyama tumulus is transmitted as the first burial tomb of Emperor Ojin, and has been revered as this shrine’s inner sanctuary.

What it is locally associated with

• Origin

  An utterance named the ground

  In the reign of Emperor Kinmei an utterance of the great deity Hachiman was received, this ground was called Mozu, and the shrine was founded.

  folk tradition

• Power spotProtection & Safety

  To keep the realm at peace

  The vow made at the founding was to keep the realm at peace and guard all the people.

  folk tradition

• What people do here

  The inner sanctuary is a tumulus

  The Gobyoyama tumulus west of the main hall is transmitted as Emperor Ojin’s first burial tomb and has been revered as this shrine’s inner sanctuary.

  folk tradition

At this shrine, the name of the ground comes out of the deity’s own words. In the reign of Emperor Kinmei an utterance of Hachiman was received, this place was called Mozu, and the shrine was founded there. The naming came first, and the shrine took the name.

The vow made at that time was to keep the realm at peace and guard all the people. What is stated is not what will be granted, but what will be protected.

The inner sanctuary is not a building. The Gobyoyama tumulus, west of the main hall, is transmitted as the first burial tomb of Emperor Ojin and has been revered as the inner sanctuary of this shrine. What is said to be the first grave of the deity enshrined here lies just beyond the precinct wall.

That Empress Jingu set her heart on this ground was, the shrine transmits, when she returned to Naniwa having finished the Sankan campaign.

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. 百舌鳥八幡宮略記 — Mozu Hachimangu (accessed 2026-08-15)