The mountain ascetics (yamabushi) of the Shugendō tradition are a network, not a single corporation: the mountain houses of Dewa (Haguro), Hakusan (Heisenji, Shirayama), Nikkō, Fuji (the Sengen shrine and the Murayama practitioners, recalled), Hakone and Izusan, with the great mountain of Kumano and the Ōmine range in the west.
They climb in the summer, offer prayers and spells, carry news, guide pilgrims and, for Kamakura, serve as quiet messengers; the housemen's New Year pilgrimage to Hakone and Izusan relies on them. The Dewa house is the best-known in the east. No head of the network is known.
Who holds it
- Title
- Collective: the mountain monks (yamabushi), grouped under the great mountain houses
- Since
- not applicable
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
English Wikipedia (Dewa Sanzan: Shugendō, lay practitioners called yamabushi, Haguro the entry); the rest recalled.
Overlord
The Tendai and Shingon head houses; the great shrines
What it holds
- Mountain trails, huts and shrines
- Pilgrims' dues
How it was acquired
By old practice.
Allies and rivals
Allied with their mountain houses.
How things stand that morning
Settled.
Wealth
Offerings; no figure.
Military
None as such.
Places of note
- Mount Haguro: The entrance to the three mountains of Dewa
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: One English page and recollection.
On the map: Not drawn; the mountain houses carry their own blocks.
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
- 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)
- 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
- Jeffrey P. Mass, Warrior Government in Early Medieval Japan (1974), from memory; the archive.org full text could not be opened
- English Wikipedia: Dewa Sanzan (read this session; thin)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.