Mitsumine Shrine — 三峯神社

High in the Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park, Mitsumine Shrine rises at the confluence of three mountain peaks — Shirayamazan, Myohogatake, and Kumotoriyama — giving the shrine both its name and its commanding silence over the Kanto plain. Cedar incense and mountain mist hang in the air, and everywhere the carved eyes of wolves watch from pedestals where other shrines place lion-dogs.

As one of the Chichibu Sanja, the three great shrines of Chichibu, Mitsumine draws pilgrims who ascend for the particular protection of its wolf guardians — believed to repel thieves, fire, and wild animals — and for the sacred ki (life-force) said to saturate this mountain ground.

Shrine tradition holds that Yamato Takeru no Mikoto, the legendary warrior-prince of Emperor Keiko’s reign, climbed this peak during his eastern campaigns and enshrined Izanagi and Izanami in reverence for their creation of Japan. Emperor Keiko then bestowed the name Mitsuminegu — Three Peaks Shrine — upon seeing the three summits that encircle it. The founding date is uncertain by historical record; these origins survive as shrine legend only.

In the Heian period the ascetic En no Gyoja is said to have trained here, and later Kukai (Kobo Daishi) installed a statue of Kannon and established a hall, drawing Mitsumine into the Buddhist sphere. Through the medieval period it became a Shugendo training ground affiliated with Nikko, attracting warrior patronage from Hatakeyama Shigetada (1182) and others. A long decline followed political reversal in the mid-14th century; the site lay diminished for 140 years until the monk Gatsukan Doman spent 27 years touring the country raising restoration funds, rebuilding the precincts by 1503. Mitsumine subsequently rose as the Kanto headquarters of the Shogoin branch of Tendai Shugendo, flourishing into the Edo period. The Meiji-era separation of Buddhism and Shinto (shinbutsu bunri) dissolved the temple complex, and the site was renamed Mitsumine Jinja in its present form.

The two principal deities are Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto, the divine couple who stirred the primordial ocean with a jeweled spear and brought forth the Japanese islands. Their presence here reflects the mountain’s role as a place of cosmological origin — a summit where the act of creation is remembered in perpetuity. Also enshrined as secondary deities are the Zoka Sanshin, the three kami of becoming: Amenominakanushi no Kami, Takamimusubi no Kami, and Kamimusubi no Kami — the invisible forces that set creation itself in motion before even Izanagi and Izanami descended to their work.

The defining legend of Mitsumine is its wolf faith. In the Kyoho era (early 18th century), a mountain priest named Nikko Hoin sat in meditation when wolves gathered silently around his hermitage. Reading this as divine sign, he began lending sacred talismans depicting the wolf — the Great Mouth God, Okuchi no Makami — as protection against boar, deer, thieves, and fire. The practice spread rapidly across the Kanto and Tohoku regions through the Mitsumine-ko confraternities, whose members made regular pilgrimages to borrow and return the wolf spirits. At the cult’s peak, the shrine had lent out over 5,000 wolf spirits simultaneously, each believed to guard up to fifty households.

Yamato Takeru’s founding climb also carries mythic weight: lost in mountain fog and near death, he was guided to safety by a white wolf that appeared on the ridge — a story that anchors both the wolf iconography and the warrior-protection identity of the shrine.

The most architecturally distinctive element is the mitsu-torii (triple torii) at the precinct entrance — three standard Myojin-style torii joined side by side into a single gate, an arrangement rare in Japan outside of Omiwa Shrine in Nara. Wolf statues replace the komainu (lion-dogs) at every gate and hall. The haiden (worship hall) and honden (main sanctuary) are designated Saitama Prefectural Important Cultural Properties, as are the Zuishinmon gate, the Kunitokotachi Shrine, the Yamato Takeru Shrine, and the temizusha water pavilion. A yohaidne (distant worship pavilion) offers a panoramic view down the Chichibu valley toward the plain below. On Myohogatake peak (1,329 m), reached by a two-and-a-half-hour mountain trail from the main precinct, sits the okumiya — the inner sanctuary — a small stone shrine marking the spiritual summit.

On January 15 each year, the Tsutsugayu Shinji (Reed-Tube Porridge Divination) takes place in a sealed chamber overnight. Priests cook red-bean porridge and submerge 36 reed tubes; the amount of porridge drawn into each tube forecasts the harvest of 36 crops for the coming year. Results are printed and distributed to pilgrims visiting in early spring. On February 3, the Setsubun exorcism rite known as Gomottosama follows bean-scattering with a ritual staff adorned with straw rope and mandarin oranges in a phallic form, praying for fertile harvests, abundant fish, conjugal harmony, and longevity. The mi-mamori (sacred wolf talisman) cycle — borrowing a wolf spirit for one year and returning it in gratitude — continues as a living practice year-round.

Autumn (late October to mid-November) brings intense foliage colour to the mountain approach, and the cooler air suits the long uphill walk. Winter mornings after snowfall transform the precinct into a scene of extraordinary stillness — wolf statues frosted white, incense smoke rising straight in the cold. Spring, particularly around the distribution of the tsutsugayu harvest forecasts, draws pilgrims in a contemplative mood. Summer weekends are busiest; if visiting then, arrive before 9 am to avoid crowds on the single mountain road.