Ōsaki Hachimangū Shrine

Osaki Hachimangu Shrine, located in Aoba Ward, Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, is an important Shinto shrine known for its exquisite shrine architecture and the famous traditional ritual of naked pilgrimage during the Donto Festival. The main hall (honden), connecting hall (ishinoma), and worship hall (haiden) have all been designated as National Treasures of Japan.

The shrine enshrines Emperor Ojin, Emperor Chuai, and Empress Jingu. During the Edo period, the shrine was associated with the regional belief in "Eto-gami" (guardian deities of birth years), particularly for those born in the Years of the Dog and Boar, making it a popular guardian shrine for many worshippers.

Historically, the shrine is believed to date back to the early Heian period, when Sakanoue no Tamuramaro invited deities from Usa Jingu to the Chinjufu Izawa Castle. Later, during the Muromachi period, the Osaki clan, lords of the Oshu region, relocated the shrine to what is now Tajiri in Osaki City, hence the name "Osaki Hachimangu".

In the early Edo period, after the Osaki clan was removed from power, Date Masamune constructed the current shrine structure in 1604 in the northwest of Sendai Castle and relocated the deity there in 1607, merging it with Narushima Hachimangu, the Date family’s ancestral shrine. The shrine sits at a strategic location where Kitayama hills and the Hirose River intersect, serving as a key route to the Aiko Basin and Yamagata.

The Yabusame horseback archery ritual, traditionally held at the shrine, was continued by retainers of the former Osaki clan and even received travel subsidies from the Sendai domain, demonstrating the shrine’s longstanding importance under successive rulers.

Though renamed Osaki Hachiman Shrine during the Meiji era due to government policy, the name was officially restored to Osaki Hachimangu in 1997, just before the shrine’s 400th anniversary celebration.