The is a

Shintō shrine A is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more ''kami'', the deities of the Shinto religion. Overview Structurally, a Shinto shrine typically comprises several buildings. The ''honden''Also called (本殿, meanin ...

in the city of

Iwanuma 270px, Iwanuma City Hall is a city located in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 43,946 in 18,062 households, and a population density of 730 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Iwanuma is at the ...

Miyagi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Miyagi Prefecture has a population of 2,305,596 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Miyagi Prefecture borders Iwate Prefecture to the north, Akita Prefecture to the nort ...

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 ...

. It is considered one of the three main shrines dedicated to 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 ...

Inari Inari may refer to: Shinto * Inari Ōkami, a Shinto spirit ** Mount Inari in Japan, site of Fushimi Inari-taisha, the main Shinto shrine to Inari ** Inari Shrine, shrines to the Shinto god Inari * Inari-zushi, a type of sushi Places * Inari, ...

, and claims to be the second-oldest Inari shrine in Japan. It was also referred to as the Inari's traditional festival day is the first horse day (the sixth day) of the second month of the

lunisolar calendar A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures, combining lunar calendars and solar calendars. The date of Lunisolar calendars therefore indicates both the Moon phase and the time of the solar year, that is the position of the Sun in the Ea ...

; in recent years, the shrine has celebrated the event on a Sunday in February or early March. This festival is estimated to draw a quarter-million attendees. The shrine is also home to a horsemanship museum.

Enshrined ''kami''

The primary ''

'' of Takekoma Inari Shrine is , traditionally identified as with Inari, and associated with agriculture, especially rice production. Secondary ''kami'' include , the goddess of food, and , the god of the five cereals. There are also several smaller subsidiary shrines within the shrine grounds.

History

The Takekoma Inari Shrine was established in 842 AD, reputedly by

Ono no Takamura , also known as , was a Japanese calligrapher and poet of the early Heian period. Life Takamura was a descendant of Ono no Imoko who served as Kenzuishi, and his father was Ono no Minemori. He was the grandfather of Ono no Michikaze, one of the ...

, the ''kokushi'' of

Ōshū Province was an old province of Japan in the area of Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate and Aomori Prefectures and the municipalities of Kazuno and Kosaka in Akita Prefecture. Mutsu Province is also known as or . The term is often used to refer to the combi ...

, as a branch of the famous

Fushimi Inari Shrine is the head shrine of the ''kami'' Inari, located in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. The shrine sits at the base of a mountain also named Inari which is above sea level, and includes trails up the mountain to many smaller shrines ...

south of

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

. The shrine is mentioned by 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. ...

poet

Nōin , also known was , was a Japanese poet and monk of the late Heian period. Along with Izumi Shikibu, Nōin is one of " Thirty-six Medieval Poetry Immortals" of waka poetry selected by (1107–1165). Nōin authored of the ''Gengenshu'' and ''Nōi ...

during the reign of

Emperor Go-Reizei was the 70th emperor of Japan,Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 後冷泉天皇 (70)/ref> according to the traditional order of succession. Go-Reizei's reign spanned the years 1045–1068. This 11th century sovereign was named after the ...

(1045-1068) and during the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

was awarded an estate by local warlord

Date Tanemune was a Japanese samurai warrior and Date clan leader during the Sengoku period. Biography He was born as the eldest son of Date Hisamune. His childhood name was Jiro (次郎). At the death of his father, he became ''daimyō'' of Mutsu Province ...

. It continued to be supported by the

Date clan The is a Japanese samurai kin group. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)"Date", ''Nobiliare du Japon'', p. 5 retrieved 2013-5-5. History The Date family was founded ...

Sendai Domain The , also known as the , was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Sendai Domain was based at Aoba Castle in Mutsu Province, in the modern city of Sendai, located in the Tōhoku region of the i ...

through the end of 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 characteriz ...

. Following the start of

State Shinto was 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 priests to strongly encourage Shinto practices that emphasized the Emperor as ...

in 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 ...

, the shrine was ranked as a Prefectural Shrine 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 (''kampeisha ...

Notable structures

The ''Honden'' of the shrine was a structure built by the 5th ''daimyō'' of Sendai Domain, Date Yoshimura, but burned down in a fire on November 21, 1990. It was rebuilt in 1994. Currently, the oldest structure in the shrine is the ''Zuishinmon'' two-story gate tower. It was built in 1812 and is a registered Important Cultural Property of Iwanuma City.

References

* Smyers, Karen Ann. (1999). ''The Fox and the Jewel: Shared and Private Meanings in Contemporary Japanese Inari Worship.'' Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ;
OCLC 39523475
* Plutschow, Herbe. ''Matsuri: The Festivals of Japan''. RoutledgeCurzon (1996) * Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1962).
''Studies in Shinto and Shrines.''
Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society
OCLC 3994492

External links

Official site of the shrine

Notes