Kayashima Shrine Main Hall

What the Main Hall Is

Kayashima Shrine Main Hall is the inner sanctuary of a village shrine in Hiezu, Tottori Prefecture, rebuilt in 1868 and listed as Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 2 November 2018. It is a single-storey timber building under a copper-sheet roof, with a floor area of 39 square metres.

The plan is three bays square, and the roof is a gabled one entered from the gable end (tsumairi) rather than from the long side. That orientation is characteristic of shrines in the old Izumo country to the west. The side pillars across the front are squared rather than round, which is unusual in a sanctuary of this type.

Inside, the space steps back in three stages: an outer chamber, an inner chamber, and an innermost chamber. The floor and ceiling of the outer chamber are set one level lower, and the central bay at the front is left open towards the offering hall instead of being walled off. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes Kayashima Shrine Main Hall as a large sanctuary of unusual form whose exterior borrows the look of taisha-zukuri.

Why It Was Listed

The registration number is 31-0258, and the criterion was contribution to the historic landscape, applied to all eight buildings in the precinct at once.

Hiezu Village names the sanctuary first among its reasons for the listing: its scale, its structure and the amount of carving it carries set it apart from comparable village shrines. A hall standing on the Tottori plain while wearing an Izumo exterior says a good deal about where this corner of the old Hōki province looked for its models.

It is not taisha-zukuri proper. That form is two bays square, with a central sacred pillar dividing the interior into four quarters. Kayashima Shrine Main Hall is three bays each way and divides front to back in three stages instead. The outward form follows Izumo, the internal arrangement follows the practice of later shrine building, and the two sit together in a structure rebuilt in the first year of Meiji.

At 39 square metres the sanctuary is large for a rural shrine. The two small subsidiary halls behind it measure 5.4 square metres apiece, more than seven times smaller.

What to Look For

Because it stands behind the worship hall and the offering hall, only the roof and the upper gable of Kayashima Shrine Main Hall are visible from the front of the approach. For the whole building, walk past the side of the worship hall to the east or west edge of the precinct. Toyouke Shrine and Tenjin Shrine sit just behind the sanctuary on either side, and from in front of either one you can follow the flank up to the ridge.

A gable-entered front puts the barge boards and the pitch of the roof on display. Copper sheeting weathers at its own pace, so the green of the sanctuary roof and that of the halls in front of it do not always match.

The squared front pillars can be picked out from as close as visitors may go. Square and round timbers throw shadow differently, and a clear morning, with light coming from the east, is when the difference reads most easily.

Visiting

The interior of Kayashima Shrine Main Hall is closed and the building cannot be entered. Visitors pray from in front of the worship hall and see the sanctuary from outside, walking the precinct. Tottori Prefecture's cultural property database records the whole group as closed internally.

Photography of the exterior is not normally an issue. For photographs aimed into a hall, for shooting during a rite, or for setting up a tripod, ask at the shrine office on 0859-27-2518.

Directions, parking and the conditions of entry for the precinct are set out on the Kayashima Shrine page.