is a Shinto shrine in the Izushi neighborhood of the city of Toyooka in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. It is the ''

ichinomiya is a Japanese historical term referring to the Shinto shrines with the highest rank in a province. Shrines of lower rank were designated , , , and so forth. ''Encyclopedia of Shinto'' ''Ichi no miya'' retrieved 2013-5-14. The term gave rise t ...

'' of former

Tajima Province was a province of Japan in the area of northern Hyōgo Prefecture. Tajima bordered on Tango and Tanba to the east, Harima to the south, and Inaba to the west. Its abbreviated form name was . In terms of the Gokishichidō system, Tajimao was ...

. The main festival of the shrine is held annually on October 20.

Enshrined ''kami''

The ''

kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...

'' enshrined at Izushi Jinja are: * *

History

The Izushi Shrine is located at the foot of a mountain on the eastern edge of the Izushi basin in the northern part of Hyōgo prefecture. It is located about 2 kilometers north of the current Izushi city area.The Ishrine is the center of the legend of Prince Amenohiboko of

Silla Silla or Shilla (57 BCE – 935 CE) ( , Old Korean: Syera, Old Japanese: Siraki2) was a Korean kingdom located on the southern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula. Silla, along with Baekje and Goguryeo, formed the Three Kingdoms ...

, which is recorded in the " Kojiki" and " Nihon Shoki", who settled in this area during the reign of

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 ...

. He brought with him eight sacred treasures from Silla, including a sacred spear, and married a daughter of the ''

kuni no miyatsuko , also read as "kokuzō" or "kunitsuko", were officials in ancient Japan at the time of the Yamato court. Yamato period Kuni no miyatsuko governed small territories (), although the location, names, and borders of the provinces remain unclear. K ...

'' of Tajima. The origins of Izushi Jinja are unknown. Although there is no documentary evidence, it is believed that it began as the family shrine of the descendants of the legendary prince Amenohiboko; however, there is some confusion as to whether the object of worship is the spirit of the prince, or the spirits of the magical objects brought from Silla. 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 Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese ...

, including the ''

Engishiki The is a Japanese book about 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 In 905, Emperor Daigo ordered the compilation of th ...

'' and the ''

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

'' and the '' Nihon Kiryaku''. The ''Engishiki'' lists it as a which holds eight ''kami'', and as the ''ichinomiya'' of the province. During the

Muromachi period The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by t ...

, the main castle of the powerful

Yamana clan The was a Japanese samurai clan which was one of the most powerful of the Muromachi period (1336-1467); at its peak, members of the family held the position of Constable (''shugo'') over eleven provinces. Originally from Kōzuke Province, and l ...

was located to the north of this shrine. The shrine prospered from this proximity until 1504, when it was burned down during an internal conflict within the Yamana clan. It was rebuilt by 1525; however, when

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

occupied the area in 1580, he confiscated the territory of the Yamana clan, and the shrine fell into decline. Under the

Edo Period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

, 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 ne ...

, ruled by the Koide clan 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. Hist ...

. During the

Meiji period The is 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 colonization ...

era of State Shinto, the shrine was designated as a under the

Modern system of ranked Shinto Shrines The was an organizational aspect of the establishment of Japanese State Shinto. This system classified Shinto shrines as either official government shrines or "other" shrines. The official shrines were divided into #Imperial shrines (''kampei ...

Ponsonby-Fane, Richard. (1959). ''The Imperial House of Japan,'' pp. 125. However, the shrine burned down in 1910. The current buildings date from the 1914 reconstruction and are a Tangible Cultural Property of Toyooka city. The precincts are still very large, with an area of 22,000 square meters, of which a 1000 square meter area in the northeastern corner is fenced off with access prohibited. In Edo period maps, this area is marked "Amenohiboko Mausoleum". In the Torii neighborhood, about 500 meters west of the precincts, the remnants of an old ''

torii A is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred. The presence of a ''torii'' at the entrance is usually the simple ...

'' gate were excavated along with many old coins in 1933, indicating that the precincts were once much larger. The excavated ''torii'' remnants have been designated as a Tangible Cultural Property of Toyooka City

Gallery

Izushi-jinja shaden.JPG, Precincts File:Izushi-jinja honden.JPG, Honden File:Izushi-jinja haiden.JPG, Haiden File:Izushi-jinja kinsokuchi.JPG, "Forbidden area" File:Izushi-jinja ichi-no-torii.JPG, FIrst Torii

Cultural Properties

National Important Cultural Properties

*''

Wakizashi The is one of the traditionally made Japanese swords (''nihontō'') worn by the samurai in feudal Japan. History and use The production of swords in Japan is divided into specific time periods:

'' short sword,

Nanboku-chō period The Nanboku-chō period (南北朝時代, ''Nanboku-chō jidai'', "North and South court period", also known as the Northern and Southern Courts period), spanning from 1336 to 1392, was a period that occurred during the formative years of the Mur ...

, 39.2 centimeters, inscribed "Tanshū Kunimitsu" and with eight

Siddhaṃ script (also '), also known in its later evolved form as Siddhamātṛkā, is a medieval Brahmic abugida, derived from the Gupta script and ancestral to the Nāgarī, Assamese, Bengali, Tirhuta, Odia and Nepalese scripts. The word means "acc ...

letters.

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

Hyogo Tourist Information

Notes

{{Authority control Shinto shrines in Hyōgo Prefecture Tajima Province Toyooka, Hyōgo Ichinomiya Important Cultural Properties of Japan Beppyo shrines