Imamiya Shrine Main Hall

A Sanctuary Rebuilt After Fire

Imamiya Shrine sits in Murasakino, on the north side of Funaoka-yama in the Kita ward of Kyoto. Its recorded founding goes back to the year 1001, when three deities were enshrined here during a rite to quiet an epidemic. The present Honden, however, is far younger than the shrine itself. A fire in 1896 destroyed the main sanctuary, and the building that stands today was completed in 1902.

The Honden occupies the northern edge of the precinct, set alongside the Honden of the Ekijinja, the older hall dedicated to the plague deity from which the whole sanctuary grew. The main hall enshrines Ōnamuchi, Kotoshironushi and Kushiinadahime, a grouping that ties Imamiya to the Izumo line of gods.

What to Look For in the Architecture

The building is a single-story timber hall measuring three bays across the front and two bays deep, roofed in copper sheet over a gabled (kirizuma) form. A single-bay worship canopy, the kōhai, projects from the front. A plank veranda, the kureen, runs around all four sides, closed at the ends by side screens called wakishōji.

Look at the front. The outer sanctuary carries plank doors and shitomi lattice shutters, and the carpenters widened both the span and the depth of the kōhai, extending the eaves and the gable verges so the roof reaches out with an unforced sweep. It is a hall that keeps to traditional shrine form while carrying the refined proportions of a well-built Meiji sanctuary.

Why It Was Registered

In March 2018 the Honden was entered on the national register of Tangible Cultural Properties under the criterion that it serves as a model of design. That phrasing points to the quality of its proportions and detailing rather than to great age.

Reading the hall together with the Heiden and corridors in front of it, and the earthen wall behind, gives a fuller picture of how a Kyoto shrine precinct was rebuilt at the turn of the twentieth century, drawing on older conventions while working in the materials and skills of its own day.

Visiting

The precinct is open and free to enter. Worshippers approach the Honden through the Heiden and worship area in front of it, so the sanctuary itself is viewed from the approach rather than entered. The grounds are quiet on most mornings, and the shrine is best known to visitors for its spring Yasurai festival and for the two old grilled-mochi shops facing the east gate.