Ogamiyama-jinja Shrine Okunomiya 大神山神社 奥宮

Everything about Ogamiyama Shrine is captivating, from its history and design to its location. Situated in an ancient patch of forest on Mt. Daisen , the shrine is one of the places you should see in the Tottori area—so is the summer shrine, known as Okumiya.

Local buses operate around five times a day between Yonago Station and Mt. Daisen.

A loop bus runs from Yonago Station to Daisen's main tourism spots during peak season, weekends, and holidays. The shrine is a 30-minute walk from the bus stop. To get to Yonago Station from Kobe , Osaka , and Kyoto , take the Sanyo Shinkansen heading to Hakata and switch to the Yakumo Limited Express at Okayama Station.

Ogamiyama Shrine is the main site of the Ogamiyama Shrine complex. Due to the heavy snowfall it receives each winter, an additional shrine was built at the foot of the mountain.

Okumiya is known as the summer shrine since it is the site for reverence during the summer months. Conversely, the Ogamiyama Shrine Honsha at the bottom of the mountain was called the winter shrine.

Ogamiyama, which means “mountain of the great god,” is the former name of Mt. Daisen . The mountain was a major site of Shugendo, a Japanese Buddhist tradition of mountain ascetic practices that combines elements of Shinto, Buddhism, Shamanism, and mountain worship.

Mt. Daisen , considered a sacred mountain, was once a center for monks practicing Shugendo, which emphasizes living in the wild and abstaining from the trappings and comforts of modern existence. The shrine started out as a simple structure for the monks to worship at around 900 years ago during the late Heian period (1068-1185).

The shrine is remarkable for two reasons. It has the largest Gongen-style shrine in the country, and features the largest example of byakudan nuri. Byakudan nuri is a special technique in which raw lacquer is painted on top of a silver foil to create a gold color through a chemical reaction.