Tamaki Shrine

Quick facts

Address

1-1 Tamakigawa, Totsukawa, Yoshino, Nara

Spiritual entities

Amaterasu Ōmikami (天照大御神) · Izanagi (伊邪那岐命) · Izanami (伊邪那美命)

About this place

Tamaki Shrine stands near the summit of Mount Tamaki, 1,076 metres high, at the southern end of the Omine range, and is transmitted as lying on the route of Emperor Jimmu’s eastern campaign. Its founding is transmitted to the reign of the tenth sovereign, Emperor Sujin, when Hayatama was enshrined for the warding of fire from the palace and the driving off of evil. It has long been one of the practice sites of the Kumano and Omine mountain asceticism running from Kumano to Yoshino; in the Heian period, under the mixing of gods and buddhas, it was called Tamaki Sansho Gongen, or the inner sanctuary of the three Kumano shrines, and flourished as a sacred site. In the Edo period an administering temple, Komuro-in, was placed here. With the separation of gods and buddhas in 1868 the mixing was abolished, and it became Tamaki Sansho Okami and then Tamaki Shrine. The deities of the main shrine are Kunitokotachi, Izanagi, Izanami, Amaterasu Omikami and Kamu-Yamato-Iwarehiko.

Origin and history

Tamaki Shrine stands near the summit of Mount Tamaki, 1,076 metres high, at the southern end of the Omine range, and is transmitted as lying on the route of Emperor Jimmu’s eastern campaign.

Its founding is transmitted to the reign of the tenth sovereign, Emperor Sujin, when Hayatama was enshrined for the warding of fire from the palace and the driving off of evil.

It has long been one of the practice sites of the Kumano and Omine mountain asceticism running from Kumano to Yoshino. In the Heian period, under the mixing of gods and buddhas, it was called Tamaki Sansho Gongen, or the inner sanctuary of the three Kumano shrines. In the Edo period the administering temple Komuro-in was placed here. With the separation of gods and buddhas in 1868 the mixing was abolished, and it became Tamaki Sansho Okami and then Tamaki Shrine.

What it is locally associated with

• OriginProtection & Safety

  For fire and for evil

  The founding is transmitted as the enshrinement of Hayatama for the warding of fire from the palace and the driving off of evil.

  folk tradition

• Power spot

  The inner sanctuary of Kumano

  In the Heian period it was called Tamaki Sansho Gongen, or the inner sanctuary of the three Kumano shrines, and flourished as a sacred site.

  documented history

• What people do here

  Near a summit at 1,076 metres

  It stands near the summit of Mount Tamaki at the southern end of the Omine range, long a practice site of the Kumano and Omine asceticism.

  documented history

This shrine sets down how its own name changed. Under the mixing of gods and buddhas in the Heian period it was called Tamaki Sansho Gongen, or the inner sanctuary of the three Kumano shrines; in the Edo period the administering temple Komuro-in stood here; and with the separation of gods and buddhas in 1868 the mixing was abolished and the name changed again, to Tamaki Sansho Okami and then Tamaki Shrine. Not an unbroken history, but a record of being renamed each time the institutions changed. Kurama-dera in Kyoto likewise records unifying its several strands of belief under a new name in 1947.

The reason for founding was fire and evil: Hayatama was enshrined for the warding of fire from the palace and the driving off of evil. What it was enshrined for is a single sentence, and the tag on this page is taken from it.

The site is near the summit of Mount Tamaki, 1,076 metres up, long one of the practice places of the Kumano and Omine asceticism between Kumano and Yoshino. Kinpusen-ji in Yoshino and Tenkawa Daibenzaiten stand on the same road of practice.

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. 神社概要 — Tamaki Shrine (accessed 2026-08-15)
2. 御祭神 — Tamaki Shrine (accessed 2026-08-15)