is a

Shinto shrine A Stuart D. B. Picken, 1994. p. xxiii is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more kami, , the deities of the Shinto religion. The Also called the . is where a shrine's patron is or are enshrined.Iwanami Japanese dic ...

in the Arashima neighborhood of the city of Toba in

Mie Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Mie Prefecture has a population of 1,781,948 () and has a geographic area of . Mie Prefecture is bordered by Gifu Prefecture to the north, Shiga Prefecture an ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It is one of the two shrines claiming the title of ''

ichinomiya is a Japanese language, Japanese historical term referring to the Shinto shrines with the highest rank in a Provinces of Japan, province. Shrines of lower rank were designated , , , and so forth.''Encyclopedia of Shinto'' ''Ichi no miya'' retr ...

'' of former

Shima Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan which consisted of a peninsula in the southeastern part of modern Mie Prefecture.Louis-Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Shima''" in . Its abbreviated name was . Shima bordered on Ise ...

. The main festivals of the shrine are held annually on January 9, June 7 and November 23. It is also referred to as the .

Enshrined ''kami''

The ''

kami are the Deity, deities, Divinity, divinities, Spirit (supernatural entity), spirits, mythological, spiritual, or natural phenomena that are venerated in the traditional Shinto religion of Japan. ''Kami'' can be elements of the landscape, forc ...

'' enshrined at Izawa Jinja are: * , daughter or younger sister of

Amaterasu , often called Amaterasu () for short, also known as and , is the goddess of the sun in Japanese mythology. Often considered the chief deity (''kami'') of the Shinto pantheon, she is also portrayed in Japan's earliest literary texts, the () ...

* , local ''kami'' who greeted PrincessYamato when she was looking for a site for this shrine * , ancestor of the Ise ''

kuni no miyatsuko , also read as ''kokuzō'' or ''kunitsuko'', were officials in ancient Japan during the Yamato period who governed provinces called ''kuni''. Yamato period ''Kuni no miyatsuko'' governed provinces called ''kuni'' (国), although the location, nam ...

'' * , territorial goddess of an island offshore Shima, now submerged.

History

The origins of the Izawa Jinja are unknown. The shrine claims to have a history extending over 1500 years, and was originally the maritime guardian deity of Shima Province centered on the worship of Wakahiru-me for protection of travelers on the sea route across

Ise Bay is a bay located at the mouth of the Kiso Three Rivers between Mie prefecture, Mie and Aichi prefecture, Aichi Prefectures in Japan. Ise Bay has an average depth of and a maximum depth of . The mouth of the bay is and is connected to the small ...

which was part of the ancient route of the Tōkaidō highway to eastern Japan. The shrine appears in the ''

Engishiki The is a Japanese book of laws and customs. The major part of the writing was completed in 927. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Engi-shiki''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 178. History Emperor Daigo ordered the compilation of the ''Engishi ...

'' in 927 AD; however, there is controversy as to whether the shrine listed in the ''Engishiki'' (and in other ancient records), is this shrine, or if it is the rival Izawa-no-miya. The Izawa Jinja has claimed to be the ''ichinomiya'' of Shima Province from the early

Kamakura period The is a period of History of Japan, Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the G ...

. One justification is that the shrine listed in the ''

Wamyō Ruijushō The is a 938 CE Japanese dictionary of Chinese characters. Heian period scholar Minamoto no Shitagō (源順, 911–983 CE) began compilation in 934, at the request of Emperor Daigo's daughter. The title is abbreviated as , and is also spelle ...

'' dictionary of 938 is clearly this shrine and not the Izawa-no-miya based on the ''

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

'' used in its name and the location listed. Another is that Izawa-no-miya is not an independent shrine, but is a branch of the

Ise Grand Shrine The , located in Ise, Mie Prefecture of Japan, is a Shinto shrine dedicated to the solar goddess Amaterasu Ōmikami and the grain goddess Toyouke-hime (Toyouke Omikami). Also known simply as , Ise Shrine is a shrine complex composed of many Shi ...

and Toba Domain in the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

sponsored this shrine as the ''ichinomiya'' as a rival to the Izawa-no-miya as Ise Grand Shrine was not in their territory. A counter argument is that by definition, the ''ichinomiya'' of a province much be located in close proximity to its

provincial capital A capital city, or just capital, is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state, province, department, or other subnational division, usually as its seat of the government. A capital is typically a city that physically encomp ...

, and Izawa-no-miya fits this description better than Izawa Jinja. In any event, the shrine was destroyed and rebuilt several times in its history, especially during the

Sengoku period The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...

and it was also once destroyed by a

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

in the

1854 Tōkai earthquake The 1854 Tōkai earthquake was the first of the Ansei great earthquakes (1854–1855). It occurred at about 09:00 local time on 23 December 1854. It had a magnitude of 8.4 and caused a damaging tsunami. More than 10,000 buildings were destroyed ...

, and all of its records were lost. During the

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

era of

State Shinto was Empire of Japan, Imperial Japan's ideological use of the Japanese folk religion and traditions of Shinto. The state exercised control of shrine finances and training regimes for Kannushi, priests to strongly encourage Shinto practices that ...

, the shrine was not given a rank under the

Modern system of ranked Shinto Shrines Modern may refer to: History *Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Philos ...

. The shrine is located a five-minute walk from Kaminogō Station on the Kintetsu Shima Line.

Gallery

Kaburako Promontory.JPG, Kaburako Promontory Izawa jinja Gate.JPG, Ichi-no-Torii Izawa jinja Honden.JPG, Honden

Notes

References

* Plutschow, Herbe. ''Matsuri: The Festivals of Japan''. RoutledgeCurzon (1996) * Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1959)
''The Imperial House of Japan.''
Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society
OCLC 194887

External links