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Hachiman is the Japanese Shinto god of war, and divine protector of Japan and the
Japanese people. An alternative name for Hachiman is Yawata (god of eight
banderoles). His symbolic animal and messenger is the dove.
Since ancient times Hachiman was worshipped by peasants as the god of
agriculture and by fishermen who hoped he shall fill their nets with much
fish. In the Shinto religion, he became identified by legend as the deified
emperor Ojin, son of the Empress Jingo, from the 3rd - 4th century CE.
However, after the arrival of Buddhism in Japan, Hachiman became a
syncretistic deity, a harmonization of the native Shinto religion with
Buddhism. In the Buddhist pantheon in 8th century CE he became associated
with the great bodhisattva Daibosatsu.
Hachiman also became to be noted as the guardian of the Minamoto clan of
samurai. Minamoto no Yoshiie, upon coming of age at Iwashimuzu Shrine in
Kyoto, took the name Hachiman Taro Yoshiie and through his military prowess
and virtue as a leader, became regarded and respected as the ideal samurai
through the ages. After his descendant Minamoto no Yoritomo became shogun
and established the Kamakura shogunate, he rebuilt Tsurugaoka Hachiman
Shrine in Kamakura, Japan and started the reverence of Hachiman as the
guardian of his clan.
Throughout the Japanese medieval period, the worship of Hachiman spread
throughout Japan among not only samurai, but also the peasantry. So much so
was his popularity that presently there are more shrines, numbering over
30,000, in Japan dedicated to Hachiman than any other kami. Usa Shrine in
Oita prefecture is head shrine of all of these shrines and together with
Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine and Iwashimuzu Shrine, are noted as the most
important of all the shrines dedicated to Hachiman.
The crest of Hachiman is in the design of a tomoe, a round whirlpool or
vortex with three heads swirling right or left. Many samurai clans used the
tomoe crest as their own, and ironically, by some that traced their ancestry
back to the mortal enemy of the Minamoto, the Taira of the emperor Kammu
line (Kammu Heishi).
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