The in Minato,

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

is a

Shinto Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shintois ...

shrine A shrine ( la, scrinium "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred or holy sacred space, space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor worship, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, Daemon (mythology), daem ...

established in 1603 (the eighth year of the

Keichō was a after ''Bunroku'' and before ''Genna''. This period spanned from October 1596 to July 1615. The reigning emperors were and . Change of era * 1596 : The era name was changed to ''Keichō'' to mark the passing of various natural disasters ...

era) on the order of ''

shōgun , officially , was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamakur ...

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...

. The current shrine buildings on the site date from 1958. The shrine is located on Atagoyama, a hill rising 26 meters above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

. In old times, the shrine had a splendid view of Tokyo, now obscured by high rises. The very steep stairs leading to the shrine are also famous, as they represent success in life. According to legend, a young

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

dared to ride his horse up the stairs to deliver plum blossoms to the ''

''. It took his horse only one minute to get up, but 45 minutes to get down, and the horse was utterly exhausted afterwards. This scene is depicted in a painting in the main shrine hall. The shrine was erected to protect residents from fire, since its formerly excellent views were well suited to watch for fires, and therefore the main Shinto god worshiped in this shrine is the fire god '' Homusubi no Mikoto''. Other gods worshipped are ''Mizuhanome no Mikoto'' (a god of water), ''Ōyamazumi no Mikoto'' (a god of mountains), and ''Yamato Takeru no Mikoto'' (a god of the military).

External links

Official website
(in Japanese) {{Shinto shrine Buildings and structures in Minato, Tokyo Shinto shrines in Tokyo Atago shrines Religious buildings and structures completed in 1603 17th-century Shinto shrines

See also

External links