page_title: Kamakura
section_title: Shakadō Pass
hierarchical_section_title: Kamakura / Shakadō Pass
caption_attribution_description: English: Shakadōguchi Pass, Kamakura. Not one of the Seven, but I include it anyway for lack of a better place. 日本語: 釈迦堂口切通し（大町側）
context_page_description: Kamakura is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
  Kamakura has an estimated population of 172,302 and a population density of 4,358.77 persons per km² over the total area of 39.53 km². Kamakura was designated as a city on 3 November 1939.
  Kamakura was the de facto capital of Japan from 1185 to 1333 as the seat of the Kamakura Shogunate, and became the nation's most populous settlement from 1200 to 1300 during the Kamakura period. Kamakura is a popular domestic tourist destination in Japan as a coastal city with a high number of seasonal festivals, as well as ancient Buddhist and Shinto shrines and temples.
context_section_description: Besides the Seven Entrances there is another great pass in the city, the huge Shakadō Pass (釈迦堂切通), which connects Shakadōgayatsu to the Ōmachi and Nagoe (formerly called Nagoshi) districts.
  According to the plaque near the pass itself, the name derives from the fact that third Shikken Hōjō Yasutoki built here a Shakadō (a Buddhist temple devoted to Shakyamuni) dedicated to his father Yoshitoki's memory. The original location of the temple is unclear, but it was closed some time in the middle Muromachi period. The Shaka Nyorai statue that is supposed to have been its main object of cult has been declared an Important Cultural Property and is conserved at Daien-ji in Meguro, Tokyo.
  Although important, the pass was not considered one of the Entrances because it connected two areas both fully within Kamakura. Its date of creation is unclear, as it's not explicitly mentioned in any historical record, and it could be therefore recent. It seems very likely however that a pass which connected the Kanazawa Road to the Nagoe area called Inukakezaka (犬懸坂) and mentioned in the Genpei Jōsuiki (源平盛哀記) in relation to an 1180 war in Kotsubo between the Miura clan and the Hatakeyama clan is indeed the Shakadō Pass. In any case, the presence of two yagura tombs (see the following section) within it means that it can be dated to at least the Kamakura period. It was then an important way of transit, but it was also much narrower than today and harder to pass.
  Inside the pass, there are two small yagura tombs containing some gorintō. On the Shakadōgayatsu side of the pass, just before the first houses a small street on the left takes to a large group of yagura called Shakadōgayatsu Yagura-gun. There rest the bones of some of the hundreds of Hōjō family members who committed suicide at Tōshō-ji after the fall of Kamakura in 1333.
  The pass appears many times in some recent Japanese films like "The Blue Light", Tada, Kimi o Aishiteru, and "Peeping Tom" (真木栗ノ穴, Makiguri no ana). The pass is presently closed to all traffic because of the danger posed by falling rocks.
  On April 28, 2010, a day of heavy rain, a large section of rock on the Omachi side of the Shakado Pass gave way, making the road temporarily impassable for pedestrians.
caption: The Ōmachi-side of the Shakadō Pass
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