Tanzan Shrine

Quick facts

Address

319 Tonomine, Sakurai, Nara

About this place

Tanzan Shrine stands on Tonomine in Sakurai, Nara. Prince Naka no Oe and Nakatomi no Kamako held a secret conference on the hill behind the main hall, at the height of the wisteria bloom. Out of that conference came the killing of Soga no Iruka at the Asuka Itabuki Palace in 645. Tonomine came afterwards to be called the peak of the conference, the hill of talking, the grove of the meeting place. In 678 Kamatari’s eldest son, the priest Joe, returned from Tang China, reinterred part of his father’s remains at the summit and raised a thirteen-storey pagoda and a lecture hall, calling it Myoraku-ji. In 701 a shrine hall was built and Kamatari’s image enshrined; that is the beginning of Tanzan Shrine. Prayers offered here include warding off misfortune, safety in the household, prosperity in business, recovery from illness, bodily soundness and protection from ill directions.

Origin and history

Prince Naka no Oe, later Emperor Tenji, and Nakatomi no Kamako, later Fujiwara no Kamatari, held a secret conference on the hill behind the main hall at the height of the wisteria bloom. Out of that conference came the killing of Soga no Iruka at the Asuka Itabuki Palace in 645, and with it the completion of a unified central state and of civil government.

Tonomine came afterwards to be called the peak of the conference, the hill of talking, the grove of the meeting place, and the tradition of it as the site where the Taika Reform was agreed remained.

In 678 Kamatari’s eldest son, the priest Joe, returned from Tang China, reinterred part of his father’s remains at the summit of Tonomine and raised a thirteen-storey pagoda and a lecture hall, calling it Myoraku-ji. In 701 a shrine hall was built and Kamatari’s image enshrined there. That is the beginning of Tanzan Shrine.

What it is locally associated with

• Origin

  A secret conference in wisteria season

  Prince Naka no Oe and Nakatomi no Kamako held a secret conference on the hill behind the main hall at the height of the wisteria bloom.

  documented history

• Origin

  A son carried his father’s bones up the mountain

  In 678 the priest Joe, Kamatari’s eldest son, reinterred part of his father’s remains at the summit and raised a thirteen-storey pagoda and a lecture hall.

  documented history

• Power spotProtection & SafetyFamily & HomeMoney & ProsperityHealth & Healing

  Prayers beginning with misfortune

  Prayers offered here include warding off misfortune, safety in the household, prosperity in business, recovery from illness, bodily soundness and protection from ill directions.

  documented history

This shrine is a place where people talked. Prince Naka no Oe and Nakatomi no Kamako held a secret conference on the hill behind the main hall at the height of the wisteria bloom — and out of that one conversation came the killing of Soga no Iruka, and a change in the name of the mountain. Tonomine came to be called the peak of the conference, the hill of talking, the grove of the meeting place. What happened here survives as a place name.

The shrine itself was begun by a son. Kamatari’s eldest son Joe, back from Tang China, reinterred part of his father’s remains at the summit and built a thirteen-storey pagoda and a lecture hall. Horyu-ji was vowed by Prince Shotoku for his late father Emperor Yomei; here a son carried his father’s bones up a mountain and built a pagoda over them. The reason for building is the father in both cases.

One other place on this list was built for this same dead man. Kofuku-ji in Nara traces its origin to Yamashina-dera, which Kamatari’s wife Kagami no Okimi built to house Kamatari’s Shaka triad. The wife housed his image; the son buried his bones. Two places on this list stand around one death.

The list of prayers begins with warding off misfortune, and runs on through safety in the household, prosperity in business, recovery from illness, bodily soundness, protection from ill directions, safety in traffic, safe childbirth and the fulfilment of a heart’s wish.

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. 談山神社の歴史 — Tanzan Shrine (accessed 2026-08-15)
2. 御祈祷 — Tanzan Shrine (accessed 2026-08-15)