Tomb of Minamoto no Yoritomo

Although there is no evidence his remains are actually there, it is commonly assumed to be the resting place of Minamoto no Yoritomo, founder and first shōgun of the Kamakura shogunate.

A couple of hundred meters further to the east lie the yagura (an artificial cave used during the Kamakura period as a grave or as a cenotaph) of the Miura clan, the twin tombs of Oe no Hiromoto and of his son Mōri Suemitsu, and the grave of Yoritomo's illegitimate son Shimazu Tadahisa.

[2] When Yoritomo suddenly died falling from his horse on February 8, 1199 (Shōji era, 13th day of the first month) he was buried in a Buddhist temple on the side of a hill just north of his government's seat, the Ōkura Bakufu.

When in June 1217 (Kempō 5, 5th month) Wada Yoshimori rebelled and set the Ōkura Bakufu on fire, this is where shōgun Sanetomo found refuge.

Also, on August 7, 1247 (Hōji 1, 5th day of the 6th month), Miura Yasumura barricaded in here to resist the onslaught of Hōjō forces, but was defeated.

[1] Likely a building of a certain size, it had as its dōshi (officiating monk) the famous holy man Eisai and, according to the Azuma Kagami, it was visited by Hōjō Tokimasa and the powerful of the shogunate.

[1] The main object of worship chosen by Yoritomo was a 6 cm silver statue of Shō-Kannon, which seems to attest that the temple wasn't built simply as a grave for the shōgun.

[1] It seems likely that this was done not simply because the temple was close, but also because it was in an elevated position, was sufficiently large to house an army and therefore easily defensible, and was probably fortified.

The gorintō that today constitutes the grave was brought there by Tsurugaoka Shōgon-in (鶴岡荘厳院)'s chief priest from the ruins of a temple called Shōchōju-in (勝長寿院) at the time the Meiji period's forcible separation of Shinto and Buddhism.

[2] According to a 1795 document called Tōzai Yūki (東西遊記), at the time just to the north of the Ōkura Bakufu there was Yorotomo's funerary mound (頼朝の塚, Yoritomo no tsuka).

[6] Ōe no Hiromoto was a kuge and the Kamakura shogunate's chief vassal, and he greatly contributed to the development and consolidation of its administrative structure.

The souls of those of the Miura clan who perished during the siege of the neighboring Hokke-dō are enshrined in a small yagura whose opening is barely visible to the left of the base of the twin stairways leading to the tombs of Shimazu Tadahisa and Mōri Suemitsu (see map above).