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Hakusan NP, Ishikawa
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At the Okumiya Grand Festival each July 18, Hakusan brewer Kikuhime climbs the mountain to offer its premium sake, “Kikurihime,” at the Murodo prayer hall. The sake is named for the enshrined goddess and brewed with Hakusan groundwater.
Kukurihime, enshrined at the Okumiya, has a rare mythic cameo: an alternate account in the Nihon Shoki says she mediated between Izanagi and Izanami at the boundary of the underworld. The Kojiki omits her entirely.
A medieval Hakusan chronicle records a summit lodge called the “Kaga Room” that was buried by volcanic ejecta and rebuilt as 3 rooms. The same account describes crowds of monks and ordinary pilgrims climbing the mountain.
In 1874, representatives of 18 foothill villages petitioned to save 8 Buddhist images removed from Hakusan’s summit during forced religious separation. Preserved below as the “Hakusan Descent Buddhas,” the group includes an Amida image once enshrined at the Okumiya.
Before tackling Hakusan’s summit trails on foot, pilgrims left their mounts at a banba—literally, a “horse place.” Shirayamahime Shrine was the Kaga gateway, one of 3 historic starting points for journeys to the Okumiya.
Excavations at Hakusan’s summit found ritual objects dating from the mid-10th to 16th centuries, including mirrors, Buddhist images, sutra containers, coins and pottery. They show how layered summit worship was centuries before today’s shrine building.
According to shrine tradition, a goddess appeared in monk Taicho’s dream in 716 and called him to Hakusan. He reached the summit in 717 and enshrined the Okumiya the following year; July 18 is still celebrated as the mountain’s opening anniversary.
In summer, climbers gather with shrine priests at Hakusan’s summit to greet the sunrise. The shrine’s own account shows participants joining in a threefold “banzai!”—a lively shared cheer in the quiet mountain setting.
Rising apart from higher neighboring peaks, snow-capped Hakusan could be seen from as far as Nagoya and Kyoto—and served as a landmark from the sea. Its abundant snow-fed water helped inspire reverence for the mountain as a water god and sea guardian.
From 1668, Hakusan’s summit was administered by Echizen’s Heisenji, not Shirayamahime Shrine. After the Meiji-era religious changes, the summit sanctuary was formally designated the shrine’s Okumiya in 1877.
The current Okumiya is a compact, one-bay nagare-zukuri shrine made of hinoki cypress, completed in 1988. Earlier buildings had to be remade repeatedly to withstand the summit’s powerful winds and heavy snow.
