Yuga Shrine Hongu

Yuga Shrine Hongu (Yuga-jinja Hongu) is located in Kojima Yuga, Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture, on the summit area of Mount Yuga (274 m) on the Kojima Peninsula. Shrine tradition records its founding in Tenpyo 5 (733 CE) when the monk Gyoki ascended Mount Yuga and invoked Yuga Daigongen. The principal deities are Taokihooi-no-Mikoto and Hikosashiri-no-Mikoto, the artisan and carpenter deities recorded in Kogoshui (807 CE) as participants in the Iwato episode and ancestors of construction craftsmen, with Kamunaobi-no-Kami and Onaobi-no-Kami enshrined alongside. During the period of Shinto-Buddhist syncretism the shrine was a single complex with the adjacent Rendai-ji as the cultic center of Yuga Daigongen. In the Edo period, Bizen domain's Ikeda family made it their prayer-shrine, and the 'double pilgrimage' tradition pairing Yuga with Konpira Shrine in Sanuki took hold. Separated from Rendai-ji at the Meiji shinbutsu-bunri, the two institutions continue to operate side by side as a representative example of preserved Shinto-Buddhist landscape in the Seto Inland region.