Miboro Hakusan Shrine

　Miboro Hakusan Shrine is located in the Miboro district in the southern part of Shirakawa Village, along the former Shirakawa Highway. Although the exact date of its founding is unknown, its name appears on a wooden placard dated 1682 and in a land survey register from 1694, indicating that it was already established as a center of worship during the Edo period.

　According to local tradition, the place name Miboro originates from a legend in which Taicho, the founder of Mt. Hakusan, forgot an important garment when he opened the mountain and came to this village. It is said that the garment was later retrieved by the mother of an imperial envoy, who came to the area and took it back with her. Near the shrine building on the upper slope stand several enormous upright stone slabs. In the surrounding area, fragments of medieval pottery have been recovered, suggesting traces of goma fire rituals once performed by Shugendo mountain ascetics.

　Miboro Hakusan Shrine is thought to have functioned as a place of distant worship for people who were unable to climb Mt. Hakusan themselves, as well as a starting point where ascetics offered prayers before entering the mountains.