Tachikawa Inari Shrine

Tachikawa Inari Shrine at the foot of the hills

Tachikawa Inari Shrine (立川稲荷神社, Tachikawa Inari Jinja) is a Shinto shrine in Tachikawa-chō 4-chōme, Tottori City, Tottori Prefecture, whose worship hall and offering hall of 1741 and main hall and middle gate of 1921 were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on December 19, 2014.

The Tottori Prefectural Association of Shinto Shrines lists it under the formal name Inari Jinja, written with the older character 稻, and gives Tachikawa Inari as its everyday name. Two deities are enshrined: Ukemochi no Kami, a deity of food, and Sugawara no Michizane, the Heian-period scholar revered as Tenjin. Before the war the shrine held the rank of village shrine, and the prefecture describes it as the tutelary shrine of the old village of Tachikawa.

The grounds sit at the base of the hills on the north bank of the Tenjin River. A flight of about 50 stone steps leads up to the buildings, which face southwest. According to the association the precinct covers some 3,700 square meters, wrapped in dense evergreen broadleaf woods with large old trees of inumaki (one about 2.6 meters around the trunk), fir, hinoki cypress and cedar. Behind the main hall a small waterfall known as Enmeisui, the water of long life, spills down the slope.

Two shrines become one: the history of Tachikawa Inari Shrine

Nobody knows when Tachikawa Inari Shrine was founded. The association's history says the Inari shrine originally stood higher on the hillside, to the right of the present grounds, at lot 156 in Tachikawa-chō 4-chōme. In October 1918 it absorbed the nearby Kitano Shrine and moved onto Kitano's site, and in July 1921, the account continues, every building from the main hall down was rebuilt.

Kitano Shrine had a longer road behind it. It began, the history says, as Takeshima Tenjin, a shrine to Michizane in Kojima District of Bizen Province, in what is now Okayama Prefecture, honored by the Okayama lords Ikeda Tadatsugu and Ikeda Tadakatsu. When Ikeda Mitsunaka was transferred from Okayama to Tottori in 1632, he is said to have brought the shrine with him and granted it lands assessed at 90 koku of rice. In Tottori it kept the name Takeshima Tenjin, and that lineage explains why Michizane is still enshrined here and why the summer festival on July 25 is called the Tenjin Festival.

Tottori Prefecture's cultural property guide explains that after the merger the old Kitano grounds were enlarged to form the present site. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the main hall and the middle gate to 1921, but records the worship hall and offering hall as a building of 1741, remodeled in 1918. In other words, Kitano's worship hall was kept and altered while a new main hall was built for the Inari deity, and the dates of the buildings still show that sequence. On this point the Agency's record and the association's phrase about rebuilding every building do not agree.

The association also notes a record that Ikeda Shigenobu, lord of Tottori, built shrine buildings here in the ninth month of 1753. Its text does not say whether this refers to the Inari shrine or to Kitano Shrine, nor which building, and how it relates to the 1741 date the Agency gives for the worship hall remains unclear.

The three registered buildings of Tachikawa Inari Shrine

All three were registered in the 79th round on December 19, 2014, under consecutive numbers: the main hall as 31-0192, the worship hall and offering hall as 31-0193 and the middle gate as 31-0194. The main hall and the worship hall were registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the nation; the middle gate was registered under a different criterion, as a building that has become a model of design.

Climbing the steps, you meet the worship hall first, its entrance porch crowned by an undulating karahafu gable. The offering hall projects from its back. Beyond, on a further flight of stone steps, stands the middle gate, and above that the main hall. The four structures step up the slope one after another. The Agency registers the main hall and middle gate at 4-218-2 Tachikawa-chō and the worship hall and offering hall at 4-68, two different lot numbers.

The worship hall and offering hall cover 68 square meters and the main hall 21 square meters; the middle gate is a small gateway 2.4 meters wide. The tiled worship hall shows off Edo-period carving, while the Taishō-era main hall and gate, roofed in sheet metal, are restrained and crisp. The precinct also keeps a pair of guardian lion-dogs dated 1700, which the association counts among the oldest in the prefecture.

Visiting Tachikawa Inari Shrine

Tottori Prefecture's guide states that the exteriors of the three buildings at Tachikawa Inari Shrine can be viewed freely and that the interiors are not open to the public. No admission fee is mentioned; visitors enter the grounds and pay their respects from outside. Official sources give no rules on photography, so it is courteous to put the camera away during prayers and ceremonies.

The shrine lies about 2.6 kilometers east of JR Tottori Station by road, roughly a 35-minute walk, or about 2.8 kilometers by car. The association lists the address as 4-67 Tachikawa-chō, which differs from the lot numbers in the Agency's register (4-218-2 and 4-68), so searching map apps for the shrine's name is the easiest way to find it.

The annual festival is held on May 23 and the Tenjin summer festival on July 25. Stone steps and slopes run all around the buildings, so wear shoes with a good grip. Enquiries go to the shrine office (telephone 0857-23-1087).