Other religious houses · The temple and shrine corporations · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Dewa Sanzan (Haguro)

The three sacred mountains of Dewa, Haguro, Gassan and Yudono, form one of the great Shugendō centres of Japan: lay and monastic mountain monks (yamabushi) climb them in the summer, and Haguro, the smallest and the only one open all year, is the gate.

The English page dates the opening to 593 by legend, gives no medieval history and does not say who ran the sites. In 1200 the house at Haguro is a mountain monastery with temple estates in the Shōnai plain; its patrons are the new Kamakura stewards after 1189. The pilgrims' confraternities that make the mountains rich are later.

Who holds it

Name
not pinned for 1200
Title
Head of the Haguro house (bettō) and the mountain monks (yamabushi)
Since
not applicable
Family
not known
Confidence
low

English Wikipedia (Dewa Sanzan): the three mountains, Haguro the entry, opened by Prince Hachiko in 593 (legend), Shugendō practice; nothing for the Kamakura age.

Overlord

Tendai superiors (recalled); Kamakura's stewards as patrons after 1189

What it holds

  • The Haguro temple and the three mountains
  • Estates in the Shōnai plain (recalled, not itemised)

How it was acquired

By old cult.

Allies and rivals

Allied with whoever holds Dewa: now the Ōshū commissioner.

How things stand that morning

Quiet; settled under new stewards.

Wealth

Offerings of pilgrims; no figure.

Military

Mountain monks; no numbers.

Threats

  • The stewards' encroachment

Where the sources disagree

  • The campaign board's point is Haguro at 38.70 139.98: accepted.

Evidence: One English page, nothing medieval.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: Mountain block.

Primary sources for Temple powers (west)

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • Hundred Times Refined Extracts: court annals (late thirteenth century, from court diaries). Short dated annals of the imperial court excerpted from courtiers' diaries, among them the Gyokuyo and the Meigetsuki. Read online
  • Mirror of the East, Anonymous; compiled by officials of the Kamakura shogunate (compiled about 1300 from the shogunate's records, diaries and family documents). The Kamakura house's own chronicle, in daily entries. Read online
  • Jottings of a Fool: an interpretative history of Japan, Jien (慈円) (about 1219 to 1220, revised to about 1223). A history by Kujo Kanezane's brother, head of the Tendai school and the leading churchman of the court, written to explain the fall of the Kujo and the rise of the warriors as the working of principle (dori). Read online
  • Leaves of Jade: the diary of Kujo Kanezane, Kujo (Fujiwara) Kanezane (九條兼實) (1164 to 1200, as a daily diary). The diary of the former regent, Yoritomo's ally at court, who had been driven from power in the Kenkyu purge of 1196 and lived in retirement in 1200. Read online
  • Record of the Bright Moon: the diary of Fujiwara no Teika, Fujiwara no Teika (藤原定家) (1180 to 1235, as a daily diary, with gaps). The diary of the poet and courtier, then thirty-eight and a middle-ranking official of the Kujo house. Read online
  • Surviving Documents of the Kamakura Period, Various; collected by Takeuchi Rizo (竹内理三) (documents of 1185 to 1333, collected and printed 1971 to 1997). The collected charters, deeds, court orders, shogunal directives, temple records and land registers of the Kamakura age, printed in date order. Read online
  • The Tale of the Heike, Anonymous; traditionally attributed to Shinano no Zenji Yukinaga, performed and reshaped by blind reciters (early thirteenth century in its first form; the standard Kakuichi text was fixed in 1371). The epic of the Genpei war, in the form the reciters gave it over the century after 1200. Read online

Sources and studies

  1. KJA_BRIEF.md and the OMNIA board for sheet kja (the lead's notes: [own] computation, [not yet checked against the source] recollection, [en] English Wikipedia)
  2. Azuma Kagami (the Kamakura chronicle), Kenkyu 10 to Shoji 2 entries, recalled and through the brief; ja.wikipedia and ja.wikisource were refused in this session, so no entry was re-read
  3. Jeffrey P. Mass, Warrior Government in Early Medieval Japan (1974), from memory; the archive.org full text could not be opened
  4. English Wikipedia: Dewa Sanzan (read this session; thin)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.