Hibashiri Shrine Auxiliary Miyuki Shrine Main Hall

A Late Muromachi Hall at Hibashiri Shrine

The Hibashiri Shrine Auxiliary Miyuki Shrine Main Hall (火走神社摂社幸神社本殿, Hibashiri Jinja Sessha Miyuki Jinja Honden) is a late Muromachi-period one-bay Kasuga-zukuri shrine hall in the precinct of Hibashiri Shrine in Ōgi, Izumisano City, Osaka Prefecture, and was designated an Important Cultural Property on August 17, 1993 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The character 幸 in the name is read "Miyuki" here, not "Sachi". The Agency dates the building to the late Muromachi period (1467–1572) and records it as a one-bay Kasuga-style hall roofed in copper sheet, a single building owned by Hibashiri Shrine.

Hibashiri Shrine itself is old enough to appear in the tenth-century Engishiki register of shrines. In the Middle Ages it was called Takinomiya, and it served as the head shrine of the four villages of Iriyamada in the Hine estate (Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan Heritage portal; Izumisano City). Its deity is Kagutsuchi, a god of fire, and the name Hibashiri, "fire-running", is said to recall a rite in which priests ran across burning fire (Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau). Miyuki Shrine is one of its sessha, the subordinate shrines that share the precinct with the main sanctuary.

Three Halls in a Row

Three small halls stand side by side at the back of the precinct. According to the Izumisano City cultural properties office, seen from the worship hall the main hall of Hibashiri Shrine sits in the centre, the auxiliary Kasuga Shrine to its left and Miyuki Shrine to its right (Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan Heritage portal).

An inscription on a railing post dates the central main hall to 1622, and the city has designated it a municipal cultural property. The little Miyuki Shrine hall beside it is the older of the two by more than a century.

The precinct lies within the Hinenoshō Site, a national Historic Site, and the Miyuki Shrine Main Hall is one of the components of the Japan Heritage story on the medieval landscape of the Hine estate (Izumisano City Digital Archive; Izumisano City).

Why It Is an Important Cultural Property

The hall was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1993, and its date rests on two kinds of evidence. No building tablet recording the construction date is listed in the Agency database. The main clue is an ink inscription of 1508 inside the hall; the Izumisano City Digital Archive places it on the kuden, the miniature shrine in the inner sanctum (Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan Heritage portal; Izumisano City Digital Archive).

The carving supports that date. The Kibana (projecting beam ends) and Kaerumata (frog-leg struts) are cut in a Muromachi manner, and together with the inscription they place the hall in the late Muromachi period. The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau is careful to note that the date cannot be fixed directly and rests on style and technique.

The Japan Heritage story values Miyuki Shrine as a hall built in the late Muromachi period for an auxiliary shrine of the Iriyamada head shrine, and still in use. A small medieval building of a medieval estate shrine survives here in its original form.

What to Look For

A one-bay Kasuga-zukuri hall is entered at the gable end, with a Kōhai (front canopy) added before it, the same type as the main halls of Kasuga Taisha in Nara. The Izumisano City Digital Archive gives the height of the Miyuki Shrine Main Hall as 4.114 metres, and the roof is clad in copper sheet (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Look at the beam ends and the frog-leg struts around the canopy. These are the details that dated the building, and their carved profiles carry the hand of the Muromachi period.

Then compare the three halls. The central hall dates from 1622 and the Miyuki Shrine hall carries an inscription of 1508, so two halls of the same type stand side by side with more than a hundred years between them.

A conservation report on the Miyuki Shrine Main Hall, edited by the Japanese Association for Conservation of Architectural Monuments, was published by Hibashiri Shrine in October 2019 (National Diet Library), a sign that the hall has recently been through a full repair.

Visiting

According to the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau, take a bus bound for Inunakisan from JR Hineno Station or Nankai Izumisano Station and get off at Naka-Ōgi; the shrine is right by the stop. There is parking, but drivers of ordinary cars are asked to check before coming. The contact number is 072-459-7511.

The Miyuki Shrine hall is the right-hand building of the three, and worshippers face it from the worship hall. No official information was found on how close visitors can get, whether the interior is ever opened, or whether photography is allowed, and no admission fee is listed, so it is worth contacting the shrine before a visit.