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 Santocho Awaga neighborhood of the city of Asago in

Hyōgo Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to th ...

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 (along with

Izushi Jinja is a Shinto shrine in the Izushi neighborhood of the city of Toyooka, Hyōgo, Toyooka in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. It is the ''ichinomiya'' of former Tajima Province. The main festival of the shrine is held annually on October 20. Enshrined ''ka ...

) which claim 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

Tajima Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan in the area of northern Hyōgo Prefecture. Tajima bordered on Tango Province, Tango and Tanba Province, Tanba to the east, Harima Province, Harima to the south, and Inaba Province, Inaba to the west. ...

. The main festival of the shrine is held annually on October 17.

Enshrined ''kami''

The main ''

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 Awaga Jinja are: * * , the third prince of the 9th

Emperor Kaika , also known as in the ''Kojiki'', and in the ''Nihon Shoki'' was the ninth legendary emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Very little is known about this Emperor due to a lack of material available for further v ...

and the great-grandfather of the 12th

Emperor Keiko The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

. * , third son of

Ninigi is a deity in Japanese mythology. (-no-Mikoto here is an honorific title applied to the names of Japanese gods; Ninigi is the specific god's name.) Grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu, Ninigi is regarded according to Japanese mythology as the ...

and

Konohanasakuya-hime Konohanasakuya-hime is the goddess of Mount Fuji and all volcanoes in Japanese mythology; she is also the blossom-princess and symbol of delicate earthly life. She is often considered an avatar of Japanese life, especially since her symbol is th ...

; grandfather of

Emperor Jimmu was the legendary first emperor of Japan according to the and . His ascension is traditionally dated as 660 BC.Kelly, Charles F"Kofun Culture"Emperor Suinin , also known as was the 11th legendary Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Less is known about ''Suinin'' than his father, and likewise he is also considered to be a "legendary emperor". Both the ''Kojiki'', and t ...

. A local noble, Ohiko Hayami offered to the Imperial Court to build a shrine to worship the Amenomisari, as this ''kami'' was an ''arashin'' (rough deity) which needed placating. His great-grandson took the surname "Kambe" and was the ''

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 ...

'' of Tajima. The shrine first appears in the historical documents in tax records for Tajima Province dated 737. It appears thereafter in the various historical chronicles in the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

, including 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 ...

'' and 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 ...

''. The ''Engishiki'' lists it as a . 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 ...

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...

occupied the area in 1580, he confiscated the territory of the shrine, which fell into decline. Under then

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 ...

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

, the area became

Izushi Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, located in Tajima Province in what is now the northern portion of modern-day Hyōgo Prefecture. It was centered initially around Izushi Castle in what is now the Izushi n ...

, ruled by the

Koide clan Koide village is located in Senapati district, Manipur, India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of co ...

followed by the

Sengoku clan was a Japanese samurai family which descended from the Seiwa-Genji. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)"Ina" at ''Nobiliare du Japon'', p. 54 retrieved 2013-4-11. His ...

. 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 rated as a village shrine in 1872 and promoted to a prefectural shrine in 1879 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 ...

.Ponsonby-Fane, Richard. (1959). ''The Imperial House of Japan,'' pp. 125. The

Honden In Shinto shrine architecture, the , also called , or sometimes as in Ise Shrine's case, is the most sacred building at a Shinto shrine, intended purely for the use of the enshrined ''kami'', usually symbolized by a mirror or sometimes by a sta ...

was built in 1880 in the ''

Nagare-zukuri The or is a traditional Shinto shrine architectural style characterized by a very asymmetrical gabled roof () projecting outwards on one of the non-gabled sides, above the main entrance, to form a portico (see photo).

'' style and is a three by two bay building. The Haiden is a four by three bay building. There is a small hill behind the main shrine which has what appears to be the remnants of a moat. The shrine refers to this as the "tomb of the god", but it is not certain if this is an ancient ''

kofun are megalithic tombs or tumulus, tumuli in Northeast Asia. ''Kofun'' were mainly constructed in the Japanese archipelago between the middle of the 3rd century to the early 7th century AD.岡田裕之「前方後円墳」『日本古代史大辞 ...

'' or not, as it has never been excavation. However, from 1999 to 2004, an

archaeological excavation In archaeology, excavation is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains. An excavation site or "dig" is the area being studied. These locations range from one to several areas at a time during a project and can be condu ...

was conducted in the vicinity of the precincts due to the construction of the Kitakinki Toyooka Expressway, and the foundations of structures and a medieval stone paved approach have been found, indicating that the shrine was once much larger than it is at present. The shrine is located about 30-minutes on foot from

Yanase Station is a passenger railway station located in the city of Asago, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, operated by West Japan Railway Company (JR West). Lines Yanase Station is served by the San'in Main Line, and is located 115.6 kilometers from the terminu ...

on the

JR West , also referred to as , is one of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) companies and operates in western Honshu. It has its headquarters in Kita-ku, Osaka. It is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange, is a constituent of the TOPIX Large70 index, ...

Sanin Main Line The is a railway line in western Japan, which connects Kyoto and Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, operated by West Japan Railway Company (JR West). It is the major railway line of the San'in region, approximately paralleling the Japan Sea, crossing Kyot ...

Gallery

Awaga-jinja, keidai.jpg, precincts Awaga-jinja, shaden.jpg, Shaden File:Awaga-jinja, honden-2.jpg, Honden File:Awaga-jinja, chokushimon.jpg, Chokushimon (Asago City ICP) File:Awaga-jinja, shinmon.jpg, Shinmon

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

Asago City home page

Notes

{{Authority control Shinto shrines in Hyōgo Prefecture Tajima Province Asago, Hyōgo Ichinomiya Myōjin Taisha Fuken-sha

Enshrined ''kami''

Gallery

See also

References

External links

Notes