Zōzan Shrine, Shinto shrine in Nagano, Japan.
Zōzan Shrine is a Shinto shrine in Nagano featuring a main hall built with Japanese cypress wood in the traditional Nagare-zukuri architectural style, which uses curved, sloping rooflines characteristic of this design. The grounds contain several structures and spaces arranged around the central hall, creating a complete religious and historical compound.
The shrine was founded in 1938 to honor Zōzan Sakuma, a scholar and government official from the Edo period who shaped scientific and political thought in Japan. Its establishment reflected recognition of his contributions to Japan's modernization during a pivotal period in the nation's history.
The shrine is named Zōzan, not Shōzan, following the local Nagano pronunciation of Sakuma Zōzan's name. It honours him as a thinker of the late Edo period, and the grounds hold stones inscribed with his writings, including the 1964 Seikenroku monument and the 1976 Sakuragi monument. Bronze statues of Zōzan and of Matsushiro figures such as Sanada Yukitsura were unveiled in 2010 and 2018.
Buses 30 and 48 from Nagano Station stop at Matsushiro Hachijūni Ginkō-mae; bus 130 from Shinonoi Station stops at Konya-machi. By car the shrine is five minutes from Nagano Interchange on the Jōshinetsu Expressway. The grounds hold the former Sakuma residence site, with only the old well surviving, marked by a stone inscribed as the scholar's birthplace.
The garden pond, Kokoro no Ike, is a Registered Monument of Japan. The tea house En-utei, moved here in 1981 from Kyoto's Kiyamachi, was the tearoom of the En-urō where Sakuma spent the two months before his assassination; he named it for the view of the rain-shrouded Eastern Hills and the Yasaka Pagoda.
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