Tenmangu is a general term for shrines dedicated to Sugawara no Michizane (845-903), a scholar-statesman who was exiled on false charges to Dazaifu in Kyushu, where he died unpardoned. Kyoto, the capital, suffered repeated storms and earthquakes after his death. These were interpreted as acts perpetrated by the vengeful ghost of Michizane, and he soon came to be associated with Tenjin, a god of heaven. The term “tenman” literally means heaven filling and was used in combination with Tenjin as an appellation for Michizane, who was now deified. His vengeful aspect was soon forgotten, and by the end of the Heian Period (794-1185) he had come to be honored as the god of literature. Several centuries later he was also regarded as the god of calligraphy. Tenmangu are found throughout the country. The Tenmangu shrine in the compound of Susano’o Shrine was formerly a honjido (Buddhist hall). Before the Meiji government issued a decree to force Shinto shrines to separate Shinto and Buddhism in order to reinforce the Shinto-based divine status of the emperor, Seikannon guarded by Bishamonten and Fudomyo’o, were enshrined in the honjido. From around the 10th Century the theory that the native Shinto deities (kami) are Japanese incarnations or manifestations of Indian Buddhist divinities, which are their original and eternal prototypes, became popular. Buddhist temples were found in the compound of Shinto shrines because it was believed that in Japan Buddhas and bodhisattvas manifested themselves in the form of Shinto deities in order to deliver the Japanese people from their suffering and ignorance. Until the beginning of the Meiji Period, within the compound of many shrines throughout Japan Shinto deities were enshrined in the main shrine (honden) and the original Buddhist divinities were enshrined in the honjido. Having both of them in the shrine compound was a form of Gionsha. The honjido at Susano’o Shrine in Shin-chi, Hiroshima Prefecture is the only remaining honjido among shrines dedicated to Susano’o no Mikoto.