Hochigai Shrine: A Shinto Shrine for Directional Protection
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Japan
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Japanese
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Sanctuary
On this page10 sections
History
Hochigai Shrine is a Shinto shrine in Sakai, Osaka, Japan, traditionally associated with protection from harmful directions. Its origin is placed on December 29, 90 BC, when Emperor Sujin, traditionally regarded as Japan’s tenth emperor, ordered Mononobe no Omorozumi no Sukune to travel to the Ishizu Plain in Chinu and perform rites for Susanoo. This tradition is regarded as the beginning of the shrine.
Origins and directional protection
The shrine’s principal deity is a composite deity connected with the powers of heaven and earth, Susanoo, the three Sumiyoshi deities, and Empress Jingu. Tradition holds that Empress Jingu, a legendary imperial figure associated with military campaigns and rule during the transition between Emperors Chuai and Ojin, worshipped the deities of heaven and earth here for protection from directional misfortune. She had returned from a campaign against the Three Hans and was facing a rebellion led by a prince. After praying at the site, she is said to have won the ensuing battle.
Emperor Ojin, traditionally regarded as Japan’s fifteenth emperor, is said to have added Susanoo, the deities of heaven and earth, the three Sumiyoshi deities, and Empress Jingu to the enshrined deities. The shrine then received the name Hochigai Oyosami Shrine and was called Hochigai Palace. It stood on Mount Mikuni, now known as Mikunigaoka, where the ancient provinces of Settsu, Kawachi, and Izumi met. Because the place was regarded as belonging to none of the three provinces, it came to be viewed as having no directional affiliation. This belief shaped the shrine’s long association with protection from harmful directions, geomancy, and auspicious arrangements for houses.
Routes, shelters, and the shrine-temple
During the Nara period, the Buddhist monk Gyoki established shelters and a well at the site. Gyoki was known for organizing religious and public-works projects that supported travelers and local communities. These facilities helped the location prosper along a route used by people and horses.
In 743, a temple was founded at the place now occupied by Mikunigaoka High School. It later became the Buddhist temple attached to the shrine, an arrangement historically known as a shrine-temple. During the Heian period, the shrine’s position along the Kumano Road made it a stopping place for pilgrims traveling to the Kumano sanctuaries, who prayed there for safe journeys.
Destruction, relocation, and separation from Buddhism
The temple was destroyed by fire during the Eisho era, from 1504 to 1521, and was later rebuilt at its present location in Ichinocho-higashi, Sakai Ward. In 1868, during the transfer of the capital to Tokyo, the shrine was ordered to conduct prayers for seventeen days. The nineteenth-century policy separating Shinto and Buddhism brought an end to the temple’s role as the shrine’s attached Buddhist institution.
Hochigai Shrine was classified as a village shrine in March 1873. In 1907, Suitengu Shrine was merged into it. That October, Mukai Shrine, formerly the tutelary shrine of Mukai Village in Semboku District, was also merged, together with its subsidiary Atago Shrine, Shinmei Shrine, and four minor shrines. The shrine was temporarily renamed Hochigai Tenno Shrine before returning to its former name the following month. Hachiman Shrine and Takeuchi Shrine were merged into it in December 1908.
War damage and continuing traditions
The shrine buildings were destroyed in the Sakai air raid of July 10, 1945, during the Second World War. They were rebuilt in 1948 and replaced again in December 2017. Osaka Prefecture designated an associated round-leaved holly tree a natural monument on March 30, 1973. A camphor tree and a ginkgo tree within the precinct received Sakai municipal preserved-tree designations on March 15, 1980.
Hochigai Shrine continues to receive prayers before relocations for work or marriage and before overseas travel. Its directional purification rite is intended to avert misfortune believed to arise from an inauspicious direction. Consecrated sand may be taken home and scattered around the four sides of a house.
The annual major festival, the Rice-Dumpling Festival on May 31, derives from the belief that rice dumplings wrapped around local clay protect against harmful directions. The custom is linked with Empress Jingu’s purification at the site. Other observances include the First Horse Festival on August 6 and monthly rites on the first and fifteenth days.
Traditions connected with Emperor Jinmu’s eastern expedition tell of an old man who appeared to him in a dream and advised him to offer roof tiles and candy to the deity. Jinmu followed the advice and brought the rebellious clan of his elder brother to submission. Another tradition says that Empress Jingu wrapped local clay in a reed leaf after landing at Sakai and climbing Mikunigaoka. She used the clay in a purification rite, made candy from it as an offering, and prayed for orderly government and peace.
The shrine’s rice-dumpling emblem and the sale of candy during the February Setsubun observance are connected with these traditions. Families traditionally bought and ate the candy as a celebratory practice, while rice dumplings are offered at the May 31 festival. The shrine’s associated deities also include the Mukai deities: Emperor Nintoku, Emperor Richu, Emperor Hanzei, Prince Uji no Waki Iratsuko, and King Wani. The deities of Suitengu and twelve additional deities are also included. The shrine stands beside the northeastern side of the tomb attributed to Emperor Hanzei.
Remains
The precinct of Hochigai Shrine contains the shrine buildings, the Mikunigaoka Monument, the Sericulture Promotion Monument, and two preserved trees. A round-leaved holly associated with the shrine stands outside the precinct to the southeast, within the sidewalk of the road popularly called Keyaki Street. The site of that tree formerly belonged to Mukai Shrine. Together, these features express the shrine’s surviving physical setting and its connections with merged local sanctuaries.
Precinct monuments and trees
Mikunigaoka and sericulture monuments
The Mikunigaoka Monument and the Sericulture Promotion Monument stand within the shrine precinct. Their presence forms part of the recorded arrangement of the grounds alongside the shrine buildings and sacred trees.
Holy, camphor, and ginkgo trees
The round-leaved holly outside the precinct had a trunk diameter at breast height of approximately 1.1 metres, a circumference of 3.5 metres, and a height of 6.8 metres in 1992. By 2018, its vigor had declined and iron posts supported the tree. Within the precinct, a camphor tree and a ginkgo tree are preserved under Sakai’s municipal tree designations.
Protective objects and ritual materials
The shrine’s traditional protective object is a rice dumpling called chimaki, made in connection with local clay wrapped in a reed leaf. Rice dumplings are offered during the May 31 festival, while consecrated sand, rice dumplings, and amulets are associated with the shrine’s protective rites. The objects relate the physical precinct to the traditions of purification and protection from harmful directions.
