Togakushi Jinja is not one building but five shrines distributed through forest and village northwest of Nagano. Hōkōsha, Hinomikosha, Chūsha, Kuzuryūsha and Okusha form a pilgrimage landscape associated with Mount Togakushi. Myth links the mountain with the rock-door episode in which the sun goddess Amaterasu withdrew into a cave and was drawn out by other deities.
For centuries Togakushi combined kami worship, esoteric Buddhism and mountain ascetic practice. The Meiji government’s separation of Shinto and Buddhism in the nineteenth century transformed institutions and removed many Buddhist elements. Surviving pilgrim lodgings and paths preserve traces of that mixed history even though the complex is now administered as Shinto shrines.