Matsuyama Shrine

Matsuyama Shrine, located in Motoshiro-chō, Fujinomiya (formerly the district of Ōmiya), has been revered as the guardian shrine of Hōshakuji, the family temple of the Fuji Grand Priests.

During the Kanbun era (1661 to 1673), the 34th Grand Priest, Fuji Nobumoto, established Hōshakuji in the town of Ōmiya after leaving the parish of Senshōji, a Sōtō school temple that had previously served his family. From that time on, Hōshakuji was the family temple of the Grand Priests. A copy of a Takeda vermilion-seal document appointing a shrine monk to the post of “Hōshakuji” also survives in the Suruga-ki. In the late Edo period, the temple maintained close ties to the rituals of Sengen Taisha. For four generations in a row, starting with Gyokurin, who became bettō in 1824 (Bunsei 7), and followed by En’ō, Jikai and Kaiben, the head priest of Hōshakuji went on to serve as bettō at Hōdōin, the bettō temple of Sengen Taisha.

The separation of Shinto and Buddhism following the Meiji Restoration brought major changes to the temple. The head priest of Hōshakuji at the time is said to have returned to lay life, taken the name Matsuyama Ikkaku and switched to Shinto funeral rites. Hōshakuji itself was abolished as a temple in 1875 (Meiji 8), with the rites of the Grand Priest family passing to a Shinto-style cemetery (okutsuki) and Matsuyama Shrine. As a result, the modern cemetery of the Fuji Grand Priest family stands near the former site of Hōshakuji in Motoshiro-chō.

Next to the vermilion main hall stands a water-deity stone, consisting of a lava rock carved with the single character for water.