Tsurugaoka Hachimangu

Tsurugaoka Hachimangu is the maximum essential Shinto shrine inside the city of Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. The shrine is on the geographical and cultural center of the metropolis of Kamakura, which has largely grown around it and its 1.8 km method. It is the venue of a lot of its most crucial festivals, and hosts two museums. Tsurugaoka Hachimangu turned into for most of its history now not simplest a Hachiman shrine, however additionally a Tendai Buddhist temple, a fact which explains its widespread format, usual of Japanese Buddhist structure.

At the left of its top notch stone stairway stood a one thousand-year-vintage ginkgo tree, which became uprooted by using a hurricane inside the early hours of March 10, 2010. The shrine is an Important Cultural Property. This shrine was at the beginning built in 1063 as a department of Iwashimizu Shrine in Zaimokuza in which tiny Moto Hachiman now stands and dedicated to the Emperor Ojin, deified with the call Hachiman, tutelary kami of warriors, his mom Empress Jingu and his spouse Hime-gami. Minamoto no Yoritomo, the founder of the Kamakura shogunate, moved it to its gift location in 1191 and invited Hachiman to reside in the new location to guard his government.