is a shrine located in Kashima City,

Saga Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu. Saga Prefecture has a population of 809,248 (1 August 2020) and has a geographic area of 2,440 km2 (942 sq mi). Saga Prefecture borders Fukuoka Prefecture to the northeast and Nagas ...

. It is one of the most famous

Inari shrines 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, ...

in Japan.

History

Dedicated to Inari, 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 ...

'' whose messengers are foxes, it is the third largest of its kind in Japan. It was constructed in 1688 as the family shrine of the Nabeshima clan who ruled what would become the Saga area (called Hizen at that time) during 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 character ...

. It was built to the Inari ''kami'' of the harvest by a princess from

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 c ...

named Manko Hime (萬子媛) who married

Nabeshima Naotomo was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the late Edo period, who ruled the Hasunoike Domain in Hizen Province (modern-day Saga Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu. Saga Prefecture has a population of 809,248 (1 Augu ...

. The Nabeshima clan was entrusted with protecting Edo’s interests in

Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surround ...

, in particular the city of

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

, which was one of the few ports open to foreign contact during Japan’s period of isolation. The shrine is also popular for new year celebrations and is very crowded during the first two weeks of January. File:Honden of Yutoku Inari Shrine.jpg File:Yutoku inari Shrine kagura-b.jpg File:「祐徳稲荷神社」楼門 - panoramio.jpg File:祐徳稲荷神社拝殿.JPG

References

Official website
(in Japanese) {{DEFAULTSORT:Yutoku Inari Shrine Shinto shrines in Saga Prefecture Inari shrines Beppyo shrines

History

See also

References