Qualla: Tsukubasan Shrine

Tsukubasan Shrine: Introduction

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Masao, CC BY-SA 4.0. The old Japanese saying goes: "Fuji of the west, Tsukuba of the east." Mount Fuji is taller, more symmetrical, more famous. But Mount Tsukuba has something Fuji lacks: two summits, side by side, one called Nantai-san -- Man's Body Mountain -- and the other Nyotai-san -- Woman's Body Mountain. Together they stand for Izanagi and Izanami, the creator deities who, according to Shinto mythology, descended from the heavens to stir the primordial ocean with a jeweled spear and birth the islands of Japan. Tsukubasan Shrine occupies the slopes and peaks of this 877-meter mountain in Ibaraki Prefecture, and its purpose flows directly from that pairing: family safety, marital harmony, and matchmaking. People have been climbing here to pray for love for roughly 3,000 years.

Read more: Tsukubasan Shrine on Qualla

Image: Masao | CC BY-SA 4.0

Tsukubasan Shrine: A Mountain in Verse

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit On-chan, CC BY-SA 3.0. Mount Tsukuba holds a distinction that no other Japanese mountain can claim: it appears more frequently in the Man'yoshu, Japan's oldest surviving poetry anthology compiled around 1,300 years ago, than any other peak in the country. The poets of the Nara period looked east from t...

Read more: Tsukubasan Shrine on Qualla

Image: On-chan | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tsukubasan Shrine: Two Peaks, Two Gods

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Waka77, CC0. The shrine's architecture mirrors the mountain's duality. The main sanctuaries sit on the twin summits: Nantai-san at 871 meters enshrines Izanagi, the male creator, while Nyotai-san at 877 meters enshrines Izanami, the female creator. Lower on the mountain, near the cable car st...

Read more: Tsukubasan Shrine on Qualla

Image: Waka77 | CC0

Tsukubasan Shrine: The Procession Up and Down

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Saigen Jiro, CC0. Tsukubasan Shrine's main festivals take place on April 1 and November 1, and they operate as mirror images of each other. In April, an omikoshi -- a portable shrine carried on the shoulders of bearers -- holds a child god and is escorted up the mountain in a procession that follo...

Read more: Tsukubasan Shrine on Qualla

Image: Saigen Jiro | CC0

Tsukubasan Shrine: The Cable Car and the Plain

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Amiden, CC BY-SA 3.0. Modern visitors can reach the summits by foot, by the Tsukuba Cable Car funicular that climbs from Miyawaki Station to the peak of Nantai-san, or by the ropeway that ascends from Tsutsujigaoka Station to Nyotai-san. From the top, the views explain why poets wrote about this mount...

Read more: Tsukubasan Shrine on Qualla

Image: Amiden | CC BY-SA 3.0