Izumianashi Shrine Auxiliary Kasuga Shrine Main Hall

What the Izumianashi Shrine Auxiliary Kasuga Shrine Main Hall Is

The Izumianashi Shrine Auxiliary Kasuga Shrine Main Hall (泉穴師神社摂社春日神社本殿, Izumi Anashi Jinja Sessha Kasuga Jinja Honden) is the hall of the Kasuga auxiliary shrine at Izumianashi Shrine in Toyonaka, Izumiotsu City, Osaka Prefecture, dated by the Agency for Cultural Affairs to around 1602 in the Momoyama period and designated an Important Cultural Property on February 18, 1949.

This small hall stands just east of the main hall. The agency records it as a one-bay Kasuga-zukuri hall with a Noki-karahafu curved gable over the front eave, a hip-and-gable (Irimoya-zukuri) roof at the back and cypress-bark roofing. It was designated an Important Cultural Property on February 18, 1949, with one Munafuda included; Osaka Prefecture's list identifies it as the record of a re-roofing in 1856.

A kasuga-zukuri hall normally faces you with the gable end of its roof and has a small porch roof in front. The Kasuga Shrine hall keeps that front, adds the swelling curve of a karahafu along the eave, and finishes the rear of the roof as a hip-and-gable. The shrine's precinct guide names its deities as Ame-no-Fuki-no-Mikoto and Kosamazuchi-no-Mikoto.

Dating the Izumianashi Shrine Auxiliary Kasuga Shrine Main Hall

No document survives that records when or why the Izumianashi Shrine Auxiliary Kasuga Shrine Main Hall was built. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to around 1602, and Izumiotsu City says it was rebuilt along with the main hall by Toyotomi Hideyori in that year. Osaka Bunkazai Navi takes a different view: it thinks the hall was already standing before the Keicho era. The sources do not agree on its age.

Osaka Bunkazai Navi bases its view on old-fashioned details. The veranda runs all the way around the core of the building, and the Shirin, the curved boards between the bracket sets and the eaves, are not the S-shaped type common in the Momoyama period but an older form shared with the Sumiyoshi Shrine hall to the west.

Other details match the 1602 main hall. The front has sliding latticed Shitomido shutters like the main hall's, and the outer veranda (Hama-en) under the porch has the same fixed railing. To Osaka Bunkazai Navi, an older frame with Momoyama finishing makes the hall an important example for understanding shrine architecture of that period.

What to Look For at the Izumianashi Shrine Auxiliary Kasuga Shrine Main Hall

The detail to find at the Izumianashi Shrine Auxiliary Kasuga Shrine Main Hall is the Kaerumata brace set on the porch tie beam (Kōryō) to carry the eave purlin. Osaka Bunkazai Navi describes a chrysanthemum-and-water motif inside it, with the legs of its outline grown into long chrysanthemum leaves.

After that, compare it with the main hall next door. The front shutters and the railing on the outer veranda are handled the same way on both, which is easiest to see when you stand where you can take in the two halls together. Farther west, the Sumiyoshi Shrine hall has the same form and the same type of shirin. With all three in view you can judge for yourself what was carried over between halls of different dates.

Visiting the Izumianashi Shrine Auxiliary Kasuga Shrine Main Hall

The Izumianashi Shrine Auxiliary Kasuga Shrine Main Hall stands east of the main hall, inside the Suzumon gate. According to the shrine, the gate opens on New Year's Day from midnight to 5:00 p.m., when visitors may pray at each hall inside; it is shut during the New Year rite. Whether the gate can be entered on other days is not published. The hall is small, so you need to be close to make out the braces and shirin. The interior is not open.

No photography rule is published; ask at the shrine office before taking pictures. Directions to the grounds and general visiting conditions are on the Izumianashi Shrine page.