Qualla: Koma Shrine: A Korean Kingdom's Last Embassy

Koma Shrine: A Korean Kingdom's Last Embassy: Introduction

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit YKJJ, CC BY-SA 4.0. The current priest of Koma Shrine is named Koma Fumiyasu. According to the Koma-shi keizu genealogical scroll, he is a sixty-second generation direct descendant of Prince Jakkō -- the Korean exile who built this shrine in the hills of what is now Hidaka, Saitama. Sixty-two generations. That is a family line stretching back to the year 716 AD, when 1,799 refugees from the fallen kingdom of Goguryeo were granted a county in Musashi Province and told to make it their home. They did. And their shrine still stands, drawing 300,000 visitors a year to a place where Japanese Shinto tradition and Korean royal lineage have been intertwined for over thirteen centuries.

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Image: YKJJ | CC BY-SA 4.0

Koma Shrine: A Korean Kingdom's Last Embassy: The Fall of a Kingdom

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alexrk2, CC BY-SA 3.0. Goguryeo was no minor state. At its peak, this Korean kingdom controlled most of the Korean Peninsula, large stretches of Manchuria, and parts of eastern Inner Mongolia. Alongside Baekje and Silla, it formed one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea and spent centuries locked in militar...

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Image: Alexrk2 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Koma Shrine: A Korean Kingdom's Last Embassy: A County for the Dispossessed

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 京浜にけ, CC BY-SA 3.0. For nearly fifty years, Prince Ko Yak'gwang lived in Japan as a stateless royal. Then in 716 AD, he was granted Koma County in Musashi Province -- a territory encompassing all of present-day Hidaka and Tsurugashima, plus parts of Hanno, Kawagoe, Iruma, and Sayama. He settled ther...

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Image: 京浜にけ | CC BY-SA 3.0

Koma Shrine: A Korean Kingdom's Last Embassy: Between Two Nations

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 京浜にけ, CC BY-SA 3.0. Koma Shrine's history is inseparable from the complicated relationship between Japan and Korea. Under the Tokugawa shogunate, the shrine received a stipend of three koku for its upkeep. After the Meiji Restoration, it was ranked as a prefectural shrine under the new system of Sta...

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Image: 京浜にけ | CC BY-SA 3.0

Koma Shrine: A Korean Kingdom's Last Embassy: Thatched Roof, Living Heritage

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 京浜にけ, CC BY-SA 3.0. Adjacent to the shrine grounds stands the Koma clan residence, a thatched-roof building with an elegant irimoya gable dating to the Keicho era, between 1596 and 1615. It was designated a National Important Cultural Property in 1976, a recognition of both its architectural signifi...

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Image: 京浜にけ | CC BY-SA 3.0