Yusuhara Hachimangū, Hachiman shrine in Ōita, Ōita Prefecture, Japan
Yusuhara Hachimangū stands on the slope of Futaba-yama west of central Ōita. Its honden, built in 1850, joins two gabled halls back to back in the Hachiman-zukuri manner, with vermilion pillars and black shutters under copper roofs. In front stand the Mōshiden (c. 1752) and Haiden (c. 1759), and the Rōmon gate of 1760, whose lower front carries a curved karahafu gable. Ten structures are Important Cultural Properties.
According to a Kamakura-period legend, in 827 the monk Konki of Enryaku-ji received an oracle at Usa Hachiman-gū that Hachiman would appear in Bungo Province; a white banner flew to Kaku, and in 836 Emperor Ninmyō ordered the shrine built. From 998 the buildings were rebuilt every 33 years, as at Usa. The Ōtomo clan supported it from the Kamakura period, but Ōtomo Sōrin destroyed it after converting to Christianity; it was rebuilt in the early Edo period. In 1873 it was ranked a prefectural shrine and in 1912 a National Shrine, 3rd rank.
The shrine's name was written 由原宮 until the Meiji era, when the characters 柞原 came into use; it is also read Yusubara. Its main festival is held every year on March 15. The South Great Gate, built in 1870, carries carvings of the Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety and Yamato Takeru, and is nicknamed the "Twilight Gate".
The shrine stands at the foot of Mount Futaba, west of central Ōita. From Ōita Station take the Ōita Kōtsū bus bound for Yusuhara to the terminus, then walk about five minutes; from Nishi-Ōita Station on the Nippō Line it is roughly a sixty-minute walk. A long flight of stone steps climbs from the precinct entrance to the South Great Gate, and past it the path splits: straight on leads to the West Gate, while the right branch, the Chokushidō, continues by stone steps to the Rōmon.
The camphor tree on the grounds is a National Natural Monument said to be over 3,000 years old. Ino Tadataka measured it on 27 January 1811 during his survey of Japan and noted in his diary a great camphor with a girth of fourteen ken.
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