The shrine is dedicated to Mikumari-no-kami, a female Shinto deity whose name literally means 'water-dividing spirit.' She governs the distribution of water from mountain sources to the rice paddies and villages below -- a role that made her one of the most practically important deities in agricultural Japan. Because mikumari sounds phonetically similar to mikomori, a word meaning 'to be pregnant with a child,' the shrine also became a place of pilgrimage for those praying for fertility and safe childbirth. Yoshino Mikumari Shrine is one of four important mikumari shrines in the former province of Yamato, and it houses seven kami in total, including Tamayori-hime-no-mikoto and Takami-musubi-no-kami. A wooden statue of the deity Tamayori-hime, housed within the shrine, is registered as a National Treasure of Japan -- one of the country's highest cultural designations.

The main hall, or honden, that Hideyori built in 1605 is unlike almost any other shrine building in Japan. Designated an Important Cultural Property, it stretches nine ken long and two ken wide -- roughly 16 meters by 3.6 meters -- an unusually elongated proportion for a sacred building. The structure follows the nagare-zukuri style, with its characteristic flowing, asymmetrical roofline, but incorporates a surprise at its center: an independent one-by-one ken unit built in the kasuga-zukuri style, the architectural form associated with the great Kasuga Grand Shrine in Nara. The result is three distinct worship spaces sheltered beneath a single cypress-bark roof, punctuated by three dormer gables. This hybrid design reflects the shrine's role housing multiple deities, each requiring their own sacred space within a unified structure.

The shrine's association with Emperor Go-Daigo connects it to one of the most dramatic chapters in Japanese history. When Go-Daigo established the Southern Court in exile in 1336, fleeing Ashikaga Takauji's forces, he chose the mountains of Yoshino as his refuge. The imperial presence transformed the entire mountain into a politically charged landscape, and institutions like the Mikumari Shrine gained significance as sites within the exiled emperor's domain. For 56 years, four Southern Court emperors maintained their claim to the throne from these slopes, insisting they were the legitimate rulers of Japan. Though the Southern Court eventually surrendered in 1392, the Meiji government declared in 1911 that Go-Daigo's line had been the rightful sovereigns all along. The shrine on Mount Yoshino thus stands at the intersection of spiritual devotion and imperial legitimacy -- a place where prayers for water and children were offered within earshot of an emperor's court in exile.

In 2004, UNESCO designated the Yoshino Mikumari Shrine as part of the Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range World Heritage Site. This designation encompasses a vast network of temples, shrines, and ancient pilgrimage trails across the mountainous Kii Peninsula, recognizing a landscape where Shinto and Buddhist practices have been intertwined for over a thousand years. Mount Yoshino itself is the starting point of the Omine Okugake trail, one of the most demanding pilgrimage routes in Japan, and the mountain has been celebrated since at least the eighth century for its cherry blossoms -- thousands of trees planted as sacred offerings over the centuries. The Mikumari Shrine sits within this living spiritual landscape, a place where the practical concerns of water and harvest, the intimate hopes for children, and the grand dramas of imperial succession all flow together like the mountain streams the goddess was believed to govern.