Kotohira-gū 金刀比羅宮
785 steps to the shrine, 1,368 in all: patron of seafarers since the nineteenth century.
Founded, according to tradition, when the god Ōmononushi set up a temporary shrine on Mount Zōzu, in the Edo period it was the only pilgrimage destination that ordinary people could travel to freely, so much so that ‘a visit to Konpira-san’ became a dream shared all over Japan. The main deities are Ōmononushi and Emperor Sutoku. From the nineteenth century sailors entrusted their fate to it: they threw barrels of sake marked for the shrine into the sea, so that the current would carry them ashore in their place, and entrusted the ‘konpira-inu’ with an offering round the neck when their master could not make the climb.
Kagawa
Kotohira
