Otori Shrine

From the Gion shrine of the Ohara valley to Otori Shrine

Otori Shrine (大鳥神社, Ōtori Jinja) is a Shinto shrine in Toriino, Koka-cho, Koka City, Shiga Prefecture, said by shrine tradition to have been founded in 882, and seven of its buildings, all dated to 1919, were entered on the national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2002.

The principal deity is Susanoo, with Onamuchi and Kushinadahime enshrined alongside him. According to the shrine's own history, the deity was first brought from Mount Sasayama in Kawai, in the old province of Iga, to the village of Oharanaka, and only later moved to its present site at Toriino. Its associated Buddhist temple was called Kawaiji, and one account holds that it once had 36 sub-temples linked to Enryakuji on Mount Hiei.

By the late sixteenth century the shrine was known as the Kawai Gion shrine or the Gion shrine of the Ohara valley, and also by the name of the plague deity Gozu Tenno. Parishioners still call it Tenno-san.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that the Sasaki family, who governed Omi Province, held the shrine in high regard from the Kamakura period on. Tradition says Toyotomi Hideyoshi gave his seal of approval to its flower-snatching rite in 1595. In 1689 Keishoin, mother of the fifth Tokugawa shogun Tsunayoshi, granted an annual rice revenue of 5 koku 8 to for repairs. The present name dates from a government order of 1868 and joins two place names: the first character of the old Ohara estate and the first character of Toriino.

A fire and a rebuilding

The buildings you see at Otori Shrine today are the product of a rebuilding. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, everything except the main sanctuary was reconstructed after a fire in 1915, and all seven registered buildings are dated 1919.

The shrine's website gives slightly different dates: a fire in April 1916 and completion of the rebuilding in 1920, one year later in each case. This page follows the national database. The shrine lists the losses as part of the worship hall, the two-storey gate, the corridors, the kagura hall, the shrine office and the temple buildings of Kawaiji, and says the parishioners rebuilt them by common consent.

The main sanctuary survived. The national database dates it to 1685. It is a Nagare-zukuri shrine three bays wide, protected by Koka City. The seven Taisho-era buildings were laid out anew in front of and around this Edo-period core.

Walking the precinct

A torii marks the start of the approach. Beyond it, a humpbacked stone bridge crosses the Ohashi River. The shrine dates the bridge to 1744 and credits it to Sugimoto Bun'emon, a stonemason from Kyoto; Koka City protects it as a cultural property. Once across, the vermilion two-storey gate stands directly ahead.

Openwork fences run out to either side of the gate and enclose the shrine buildings. At the centre is the worship hall. The kagura hall stands to its east and the offering hall faces it from the west, with the mikoshi storehouse just north of the offering hall.

Behind the worship hall is the Norito Hall, which doubles as the middle gate, and a second fence turns off it on both sides to close in the main sanctuary. Only the shrine office sits outside the fences, southwest of the shrine buildings and facing east. The precinct also holds three subsidiary shrines: Hachiman, Hiyoshi and Nishinomiya.

The shrine gives the grounds of Otori Shrine as 10,142 tsubo, and Koka City protects them as a scenic site. About 50 metres northwest of the main sanctuary, square earthen embankments survive. Nobody yet knows whether they mark the shrine's earlier site, the remains of Kawaiji, or a medieval fort.

The seven registered buildings

The registered buildings at Otori Shrine are the two-storey gate, the worship hall, the Norito Hall (middle gate), the kagura hall, the offering hall, the mikoshi storehouse and the shrine office. They carry consecutive registration numbers, 25-0193 to 25-0199, and were registered on 25 June 2002, with official notice following on 16 July 2002. All seven were chosen under the same criterion: buildings that serve as a model of form.

Their sizes vary widely. The Norito Hall covers just 12 square metres, while the shrine office covers 177 square metres. The roofs differ too: Hiwadabuki cypress bark on the gate, the worship hall and the Norito Hall; copper sheet on the kagura hall and the offering hall; Hongawarabuki tile on the storehouse; and Sangawara-buki tile on the shrine office.

The shrine describes its vermilion gate and corridors as modelled on the west gate of the Gion shrine in Kyoto, better known today as Yasaka Shrine. Each building has its own page covering construction and details.

Visiting and getting there

The nearest station to Otori Shrine is Koka on the JR Kusatsu Line, and the shrine gives the walk as 20 minutes. The Ohara Line of the Koka City community bus has an Otori Jinja stop, about 5 minutes from Koka Station North Exit, but it runs only a few times a day and not every day, so check the city timetable before relying on it.

By car, allow about 15 minutes from the Konan or Koka-Tsuchiyama interchange on the Shin-Meishin Expressway, or about 20 minutes from the Kamitsuge interchange on the Meihan Road. There is parking within the grounds.

Neither the shrine's website nor the Koka City tourism guide mentions an admission fee. We also found no published opening hours or photography rules, so if you plan to visit on a festival day or during a ceremony, contact the Otori Shrine office by phone (0748-88-2008).

The annual festival, Ohara Gion, is held every year with an eve-of-festival rite on 23 July and the main festival on 24 July. A lacquered record carried in the mikoshi procession gives its origin as 1415, and Shiga Prefecture protects it as an intangible folk cultural property. In the flower-snatching rite on the main day, people grab at the paper flowers on the festival halberds while others try to beat them off with green bamboo, which is why it is also called the Fighting Festival.

Early summer has its own draw. From early to late June, the shrine says, Genji fireflies gather in numbers around the stone bridge.