Kanda Shrine Subordinate Shrine Ichinosha Main Hall

What the Ichinosha Main Hall Is

The Kanda Shrine Subordinate Shrine Ichinosha Main Hall (感田神社末社一之社本殿, Kanda Jinja Massha Ichinosha Honden) is the hall of a subordinate shrine built in 1773 at Kanda Shrine in Naka, Kaizuka City, Osaka Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 23 October 2008. Kaizuka City identifies it as the hall of the Kotohira shrine. It stands at the centre of the grounds, facing east.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives its size as 4.8 by 5.8 metres, a single-storey timber building with a tiled roof and 28 square metres of floor. Those are the measurements of the outer building. The sanctuary that actually houses the deity sits inside it. The hall was renovated in 1975.

Kanda Shrine's subordinate shrines are numbered, Ichinosha (first shrine) through Gonosha (fifth). The halls of four of them are registered, and Ichinosha's is the oldest and largest.

A Shrine Inside a Building

Inside the Kanda Shrine Subordinate Shrine Ichinosha Main Hall, a square 2.9 metres on a side is partitioned off, and a raised platform fills its rear half. On the platform stands the sanctuary, modelled on a sanden-sha, a shrine three bays wide.

The sanctuary has a wooden stair and veranda at the front with a railing capped by Giboshi finials, round columns with projecting bracket sets, and a double layer of closely spaced rafters. Its roof is of cypress bark, with a Noki-karahafu, an arched cusped gable, lifting the middle of the front eave. In other words, a bark-roofed shrine sits under a tiled roof.

Kaizuka City dates the Ichinosha hall, like the Shinmon gate, to the An'ei era and notes the fine ornament on both.

Why It Was Registered and What to Look For

The Kanda Shrine Subordinate Shrine Ichinosha Main Hall was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape, and the Agency calls it a representative example of a subordinate shrine hall. It occupies the centre of the grounds.

The thing to see is not the outer building but the sanctuary within. Stand at the front and let your eye travel from the finials on the stair rail to the brackets on the round columns and up to the arched eave. Then find the spot where the outer posts and the inner columns line up one behind the other; that is where the double structure becomes clear.

Visiting the Ichinosha Main Hall

The Kanda Shrine Subordinate Shrine Ichinosha Main Hall stands at the centre of the grounds and you may pray at the front. There is no entry and no advertised special opening, so the sanctuary is seen only as far as it is visible from the front (checked 26 September 2026).

The inner sanctuary is darker than the outside, so give your eyes a moment to adjust. If someone is praying, wait behind them, and check with the shrine office before taking photographs. Directions to the shrine are on the Kanda Shrine page.