Hachiman

Also Known As: also Yahata or Yawata; Hachiman Daibosatsu, the Great Bodhisattva Hachiman; Hachiman no Ōkami; identified with the deified Emperor Ōjin
Region/Culture: East Asia
Mythos: Japanese Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: A kami of war and archery who speaks through oracles, whose sacred objects are usually a bow and arrows, and whose messengers are doves.
Role in Mythos: He is the protector of the imperial house and the guardian of the warrior class, ranked from the late eleventh century second only to Ise as an ancestral kami of the emperors.
Relation to Humans: He intervenes in human affairs by oracle, backing the building of the Great Buddha at Nara and blocking a monk’s bid for the throne. Warrior clans, above all the Minamoto, claimed him as their own kami, and his shrines are more numerous across Japan than those of any kami except Inari.

The god of the samurai first appears dressed as a monk. In the hall at Tōdaiji in Nara sits a wooden figure carved by the sculptor Kaikei in 1201: a shaven head, a calm face, the folded robes of a Buddhist priest, colour still clinging to the wood. That is Hachiman, the kami of war and archery, and the shape he was given tells most of his story.

He came out of northern Kyushu. His oldest centre is Usa, on the coast facing the continent, where a shrine to him stood by 725 alongside five other Hachiman shrines in the region. Kyushu was where ships from Korea and China landed, and at Usa the worship of kami and the teaching of the Buddha mixed early and thoroughly. Temples connected to Hachiman were folded into a single temple there in the same year the shrine is first recorded. One account in the shrine’s tradition says he was enshrined at Usa to atone for the killing done when the court crushed a rising of the Hayato people of southern Kyushu in 720. The release of captive fish and birds at his festivals, the Hōjō-e, grew from that Buddhist idea of making amends for life taken.

His name is usually read as “eight banners”. A legend makes the banners literal: eight flags dedicated by Empress Jingū after a crossing to Tsushima, or eight heavenly banners at the birth of her son Ōjin. Neither story is proof of anything. They are how later ages explained a name nobody could quite account for.

That son became Hachiman. Ōjin was a semi-legendary emperor, and the first text to tie him to the god dates from around 840. A late Heian chronicle, the *Fusō Ryakuki*, tells how a child of three appeared at Usa in 571 and announced that he was Ōjin. By the Heian period the two were one figure, and Jingū, the warrior empress said to have led an invasion of Korea while carrying him, was drawn in beside him.

He first walked onto the national stage by voice. In the 740s, as the colossal bronze Buddha at Tōdaiji was being cast, the Usa priestess Ōga no Morime brought an oracle to the capital: Hachiman would help the work. The god was carried to Nara in 749 and installed as the temple’s guardian. The court rewarded Usa with rank and tax relief. In 781 it gave him a Buddhist title outright, Daibosatsu, Great Bodhisattva. A kami had been promoted into the Buddhist hierarchy, and nobody seems to have thought it strange.

The oracle could also refuse. In 769 the monk Dōkyō, favourite of the reigning empress, was put forward for the throne on the strength of a message said to come from Usa. The courtier Wake no Kiyomaro travelled to the shrine to confirm it and came back with the opposite answer: the throne belonged to the imperial line alone. Dōkyō fell. From then on Hachiman was the watchman of the dynasty.

In 860 the monk Gyōkyō brought a share of the god’s spirit from Usa to Iwashimizu, on a wooded hill outside Kyoto, and that shrine became the centre of the cult for the capital. By the end of the eleventh century Hachiman and the sun goddess’s shrine at Ise were spoken of together as the two ancestral mausoleums of the emperors.

Then the warriors took him. The Minamoto, the Genji, adopted Hachiman as their clan kami in the eleventh century. Minamoto no Yoshiie, a famous archer, came of age at Iwashimizu and called himself Hachiman Tarō, Hachiman’s eldest son. When his descendants built a military government at Kamakura they gave the town Tsurugaoka Hachimangū as its heart, and Hachiman became the guardian of the whole warrior class. Shrines to him spread across the estates of the provinces wherever a warrior family wanted local protection. The wooden hall smelled of cedar and incense, and outside it the gravel crunched under armour.

A shrine to him on an ordinary morning is a quiet place. Doves walk the stones, because doves are his messengers. Behind the closed doors the god’s sacred object is most often a bow and its arrows, sometimes a stirrup. A family climbs the steps with a new baby in white, come for its first shrine visit, and the bell rope rasps as they pull it.

When Kublai Khan’s fleets came in 1274 and again in 1281, storms scattered them both times. Japan credited the divine wind to Hachiman. The storms were typhoons. The credit went to the god anyway, and the name *kamikaze* stayed with it into the twentieth century.

His power is protection by speech and by the bow. He answers through oracles, blesses archers and armies, and stands guard over temples and the imperial line. His limits are those of a god who belongs to so many people at once. He has no myth cycle of his own in the old chronicles, no battles fought with his own hands, and the face he wears depends on who is praying: emperor, bodhisattva, ancestor of a clan, guardian of a district. Even his name is a puzzle that the legends had to solve after the fact.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Hachiman?

Hachiman is the Japanese kami of war and archery, protector of the imperial house and guardian of the warrior class. He is identified with the deified Emperor Ōjin, and the court gave him the Buddhist title Great Bodhisattva in 781. His shrines outnumber those of every kami except Inari.

Where did the worship of Hachiman begin?

Hachiman worship began at Usa in northern Kyushu, where a shrine stood by 725 together with five other Hachiman shrines in the region. In 860 the monk Gyōkyō brought the god’s spirit to Iwashimizu near Kyoto, which became the centre of the cult for the capital.

Why is Hachiman the god of the samurai?

The Minamoto clan adopted Hachiman as their clan kami in the eleventh century, and the archer Minamoto no Yoshiie called himself Hachiman Tarō, Hachiman’s eldest son. When the Minamoto founded the Kamakura government, they centred the town on Tsurugaoka Hachimangū, and Hachiman became the guardian of the whole warrior class.

What are the symbols of Hachiman?

Hachiman’s sacred object at most shrines is a bow and arrows, sometimes a stirrup. Doves are his messengers. In art he is often shown as a Buddhist monk, as in the wooden statue carved by Kaikei in 1201 at Tōdaiji in Nara.

What role did Hachiman play in the Dōkyō incident?

In 769 the monk Dōkyō was put forward for the throne. The courtier Wake no Kiyomaro went to Hachiman’s shrine at Usa and returned with an oracle that only the imperial line could rule, and Dōkyō’s bid failed. The episode fixed Hachiman’s role as guardian of the imperial house.