Its god is the earth itself: no statue, no inner building, only the ground.
The shrine worships Ikushima and Tarushima, the two deities of the land: at the centre of the enclosure there is no honden but the ground itself, guarded on four sides. Visitors walk round the sacred enclosure without ever coming across a statue or a building to worship, only the ground enclosed by the four walls.
A very ancient shrine in Ueda, already listed in the Engishiki of 927 as a shrine of the first rank (名神大社); one of the very few in Japan dedicated to Ikushima and Tarushima together (the other is in the inner grounds of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo). It received the devotion of the Takeda and then of the Sanada, lords of Ueda: kept here are ninety-four loyalty documents from the vassals of Takeda Shingen (1566–1567), an Important Cultural Property, and in 1610 Sanada Nobuyuki had the secondary shrine dedicated to Suwa, facing north, rebuilt.
ℹ️ Grounds always open, free entry. Beside the shrine grows a pair of zelkova trees about 800 years old (夫婦欅).
🚉 Shimonogo · 6 min walk
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