Sumiyoshi Taisha Wakamiya Hachimangu Main Hall

The shrine of Empress Jingu's son

Sumiyoshi Taisha Wakamiya Hachimangu Main Hall (住吉大社摂社若宮八幡宮本殿) is a one-bay sanctuary facing west beside the southeast of the main sanctuary of Sumiyoshi Taisha in Sumiyoshi Ward, Osaka, rebuilt around 1810, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 2018/05/10 and designated an Osaka Prefecture Tangible Cultural Property on 2025/03/24. It is a gable-entry building with a tiled roof covering 5.8 square metres.

It enshrines Emperor Ojin, worshipped as Hachiman, and his minister Takeuchi no Sukune. Ojin was the son of Empress Jingu, the deity of the Fourth Sanctuary; the shrine stands just south of Gosho Gozen, where the Sumiyoshi gods are said to have first been worshipped, and the name Wakamiya, "young prince's shrine", reflects the mother-and-son bond. Many of the small shrines here have moved over the centuries, but according to Osaka Prefecture this one has stayed in the same place throughout the Edo period.

The main halls in miniature

It measures 2.381 metres by 1.895 metres. Though only one bay in each direction, it has five wooden steps at the front, and its straight roof, crossed gable struts and gable pendant copy those of the main halls. Inside, a board door divides an inner and outer room; the posts are vermilion and the walls white. The prefecture describes it as following the Sumiyoshi-zukuri style closely, more so than the branch shrines, and values it as a building that preserves the old form of the subsidiary shrines next to the main sanctuary.

The prefecture dates the present building to around 1810: after the fire of 1802 it was most likely rebuilt along with the main halls. A shrine of the same size appears in the Genroku-era Sumiyoshi Matsuba Taiki and on a plan of 1653, so the rebuilding kept the earlier dimensions. The division into two rooms probably dates from the rebuilding of 1708, and the roof was likely changed from cypress bark to tiles after 1878, when Okubo Toshimichi submitted a proposal to re-roof the branch shrines in tile.

The inner doors carry a richly coloured painting of pine and four white doves on gold, signed Yukansai Rankei. An Edo-period account records that in 1747 a Sakai painter, Sugimori Yusen, painted pine and cranes here, so the doors seem to have been repainted in a similar spirit when the shrine was rebuilt. Doves are the messengers of Hachiman.

What to look for, and visiting

In front of the Sumiyoshi Taisha Wakamiya Hachimangu Main Hall stands a stone torii of 1907, itself a registered property. Through it, the straight roof and crossed struts look like a scaled-down main hall. Whether you can see the door painting depends on whether the doors are open.

The festival on January 12 includes the yudate ritual, in which a priestess scatters boiling water from cauldrons with bamboo grass. The exterior can be seen during opening hours, at no charge. Since the 2025 prefectural designation, its national registration record no longer appears in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database. Opening hours and directions are on the Sumiyoshi Taisha page.