Ikazuchi-no-oka Hill

A small hill among the rice fields

This small hill stands north of Amakashi Hill, on the west bank of the Asuka River. It is very low, rising only a little more than 10 m above the surrounding paddies, and you can walk all the way round it in a few minutes.

The local place name, Ikazuchi ("thunder"), is also the name of the hill.

The man who caught the thunder

The story told to explain the name comes from the Nihon Ryōiki, a collection of Buddhist tales.

Emperor Yūryaku ordered his attendant, Chiisakobe no Sugaru, to go and catch the thunder. Sugaru galloped off on horseback, shouting that it was the emperor's command, and the thunder fell to earth. He loaded it onto a palanquin and carried it back to the palace. That is the story.

Later, when Sugaru died, a grave was built where the thunder had fallen, and a marker was set up reading "the grave of Sugaru, who caught the thunder." That place, it is said, is the hill of thunder.

It is a tale of someone taking an impossible order completely at face value, and it has partly been read as a comic story. Both the Nihon Shoki and the Nihon Ryōiki record tales of a thunder god descending on this hill, and the hill's name is thought to come from them.

"Our lord, being a god"

There is also a poem about this hill in the Man'yōshū (Japan's oldest anthology of poetry).

"Ōkimi wa / kami ni shi maseba / amakumo no / ikazuchi no ue ni / iori seru kamo" — by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro.

It means: "Our great lord, being a god, has built his lodge above the thunder in the clouds of heaven." The poem is headed "When the Emperor went out to Ikazuchi Hill," and the emperor is generally taken to be Emperor Tenmu. The wording plays on the hill's name, Ikazuchi, "thunder."

So this small hill was, in its day, a place worthy of poetry.

The Ikazuchi-no-oka East Site

Excavations in the paddies on the east side of the hill have found remains of buildings from the Nara period (710–794) to the Heian period (794–1185).

What drew attention was a pottery vessel with "Oharida-no-miya" written on it in ink. Records say that in the early Heian period Emperor Junna built an Oharida Palace in this area, and the vessel is thought to be connected with it.

This find strengthened the view that the Oharida Palace to which Empress Suiko moved in 603 was also in this area. Until then, the leading theory had placed it at the Furumiya site to the south.

However, the inscribed pottery itself dates from the Heian period. It has not been settled that Empress Suiko's palace stood on the same spot.

Visiting

About 10 minutes on foot from the "Toyura" stop on the Asuka loop bus from Kintetsu Kashiharajingu-mae Station. Walk north along the Asuka River from the northern foot of Amakashi Hill.

You can climb the hill, but there is no viewing platform or other facilities. Trees grow thickly, so the view from the top is not guaranteed.

The site to the east has been backfilled and is now rice paddies; almost nothing is visible on the surface. At the roadside at the foot of the hill stands an Asuka Village information board inscribed with Hitomaro's poem.

Toyura Palace site, the Furumiya site and Amakashi Hill are all within walking distance.