Takaosan Yakuōin (高尾山薬王院)

Quick Facts

Type

Shrine or temple

Prefecture

Tokyo · Hachiōji

Nearest station

Takaosanguchi Station (Keiō Takao Line)

From the station

Cable car or chair lift from Kiyotaki, then about 20 minutes on foot along the main trail

English signage

full

Opening hours and admission

See the official site · information checked on 2026-11-03

Hours, admission and closing days change, and this site does not list them. The link goes to the place's own page, with the date we last checked it.

What is there

Yakuōin is the temple of Mount Takao, an hour west of central Tokyo and the most climbed mountain in the country. It was founded in 744, and its principal deity, Iizuna Daigongen, is attended by tengu: a long-nosed great tengu and a beaked small tengu stand in bronze before the hall, tengu masks hang in the halls, and small tengu figures turn up along the whole path from the cable car to the summit. Fire rites are held on the mountain through the year, and the trail continues past the temple to the top at 599 metres.

Why here

The tengu of Takao are servants of the mountain’s deity: guardians who punish wrongdoers and protect the faithful, which is the tengu of temple tradition rather than the one of the village tales. The 1983 record from Hinohara, in the same hills a little further west, is of the other kind, a child carried off and found with his sandals set neatly side by side. Both tengu belong to these mountains.

Yokai you will meet

Tengu 天狗 — Great and small tengu in bronze before the main hall; the tengu as servants of the mountain's deity.

Getting there

Takaosanguchi Station (Keiō Takao Line). Cable car or chair lift from Kiyotaki, then about 20 minutes on foot along the main trail.

Sources and further reading

Reliable secondary Takaosan Yakuōin Takaosan Yakuōin Official site of the temple.

Reliable secondary About Takaosan Yakuoin Takaosan Yakuōin English page on the temple's history since 744, Iizuna Daigongen and the tengu.

Database Takaosan Yakuōin (高尾山薬王院) Wikipedia (Japanese) History, the tengu statues before the hall and access from Takaosanguchi.

Other places with these yokai

Tōno Municipal Museum 遠野市立博物館 Museum Tōno, Iwate — Tengu

Tōno Folktale Museum とおの物語の館 Museum Tōno, Iwate — Tengu

Kashōzan Mirokuji 迦葉山弥勒寺 Shrine or temple Numata, Gunma — Tengu

Daiyūzan Saijōji 大雄山最乗寺 Shrine or temple Minamiashigara, Kanagawa — Tengu

Kurama-dera 鞍馬寺 Shrine or temple Kyoto (Sakyō), Kyoto — Tengu

Fukusaki: Yanagita Kunio's Birthplace and the Yokai Benches 福崎町（柳田國男・松岡家記念館と妖怪ベンチ） Site Fukusaki, Hyōgo — Tengu

Mizuki Shigeru Road 水木しげるロード Street Sakaiminato, Tottori — Tengu

Yokai Yashiki at Ōboke 妖怪屋敷と石の博物館（道の駅大歩危） Museum Miyoshi (Yamashiro), Tokushima — Tengu

Other places in Tokyo

Oiwa Inari: Tamiya Shrine and Yōunji 於岩稲荷田宮神社・陽運寺 Shrine or temple Shinjuku (Yotsuya), Tokyo — Two small shrines facing each other across a lane in Yotsuya, on the ground where the Tamiya family lived and where the play put Oiwa's ghost.

Ōji Fox Parade 王子狐の行列 Festival Kita (Ōji), Tokyo — On New Year's Eve a procession in fox masks walks from the shrine of the changing tree to Ōji Inari, as the foxes did in Hiroshige's print.

Kitarō Chaya 鬼太郎茶屋 Shop Chōfu, Tokyo — The yokai tea house of the town where Mizuki Shigeru lived for half a century, now on the shopping street by Chōfu station.